My
husband and I are taking an enrichment class on teenage parenting at
church. The book we are reading is
called “The Age of Opportunity”. It
is a very resourceful book and I highly recommend it, however when I first
started reading the book I was going through a rough time with my
teenagers. I doubted whether they would
ever grow into responsible, productive human beings and if I would remain sane
in the process. I remember trying to read
this book as one teenager sulked in her room and the other slammed her way up
the stairs in anger. The author
confidently spoke of all the blessings of being a parent and exclaimed that the
teenage years were a golden opportunity from God to minister to my children. I still can feel the overwhelming fear,
exhaustion and anger that led to me throwing that book across the room and
shouting, “YOU KNOW WHAT GOD? MAYBE I DON’T WANT THIS OPPORTUNITY!”
Life can be overwhelming; my teenagers are not
the only thing that has led me into a deep dark pit of despair. Finances, marriage, work, relationships all
of these things have led me to question who God is and what in the world he wants
me to do with my life. That deep dark
place, where you look up and you can’t see God. I don’t know if you are like
me, but I recently realized that sometimes (well really a lot of the times)
when I end up in this deep dark pit, I definitely contributed to the digging of
the pit. The pit may have started out as
a divot in the ground like a bad grade. In that moment, I don’t confidently
turn to God and say “you love my children more than I do and have great promises for them.” I recoil, my mind starts to race and I start planning how I
will overcome this issue with my own strengths and power. In these moments my focus starts to
shift. As my focus shifts from God and
the promises he has made to love my children, I wander over to the shovel and
start planning how I will dig my way out of the situation. After all, I found the shovel, so God must have put it there for me to do something, right?
So I start digging slowly. Obviously,
God is not going to do this, so I am going to have to. I start thinking of all
the things that need to be done and all of the things that could go wrong. As I
am doing this, I start to notice that I am barely moving any dirt. My child is still not handing in assignments,
in fact she will probably never learn Algebra, she will fail math, never learn
good study skills, never have a drive to complete anything, not finish high
school, never go to college, and one day live on the streets. I’m completely
overwhelmed by all of the terrible possibilities waiting for my child who didn’t
turn in her math assignment.
Wait stop…..have you ever been here?!? This is
when you furiously start digging; it will all be okay if you could only dig
faster. So you dig, you start by giving
your child a lecture, you desperately track their grades, and communicate with
teachers. Now you are really digging,
you have worked up a good sweat, your arms are growing tired and your legs are
caving in to the point where you can’t stand anymore. You start to look up and you have dug
yourself into such a deep pit that you only see darkness. This is when the yelling starts. You scream up the pit, “How in the world am I
going to do this? I am so overwhelmed and exhausted, why am I in this place?”
Now the anger sets in. Where are God’s
promises? He said he would take care of and love my children. How could he let her get so far from where
she needs to be and in the meantime put me in this deep dark place where I can’t
see him? How could he do this to me?!? And look at this shovel he gave me, couldn't he given me better tools? Now you throw down the shovel and you refuse
to move. You are paralyzed by the fear,
exhaustion and anger.
This is when I usually turn to God
and give him everything. If I were God,
I would be a little fed up. But this
happens again and again in my life. I
lose focus of the things that matter, become overwhelmed by the negative
possibilities, exhausted when my own efforts fail, angry at a God that had
nothing to do with my shoveling and then paralyzed into inaction. There I sit in my own pit, which I dug,
crying out to God for help. The good
news is, in that deep dark pit is where you are growing the most. It’s dark, painful, scary and you have no
idea how you will get out. So just maybe
the book is right after all, the pit is a golden opportunity to sit in the dark
and become exactly who God wants you to be. By the way, he also will answer every time, he never gets fed up.
Stay tuned for my post next week:
What to Do While You Are in the Pit
