There, in the middle of Walmart, it was happening. Again. He had chosen to disobey, and when made to sit in the cart as a result of his actions, the fit began. The screaming, the shaking, the red face.
He's always had a very strong will, but this is a new thing. My husband and I spoke in hushed tones as we drove away from the store, frustrated and scared and unsure what to do. After we reached our house, it started up again in full force, until he was dry-heaving from screaming so hard.
My precious boy who can snuggle up to me at the drop of a hat and lay close while I sing "How Great Thou Art" into his ear. The one who tells jokes and laughs and finds such excitement in life. My boy who, at 3, already wants to save the world... as long as he can take a light saber and cape with him. HE is not this one - this boy who throws an angry fit until he's literally sick from screaming for over an hour, allowing nothing to calm him.
Feeling sorry for myself, I found myself sobbing by the end of the week. Why is he doing this? What are we supposed to do? I am so desperately afraid, to the very core of my soul, that we are completely messing up this child!!
The next morning I awoke to this scripture in my email inbox:
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.
Isaiah 42:16
My spirit soared within me as I read it, read it again, and then hurried into the bathroom to share it with my husband, getting ready for work. He has shown me this before, my God. Yet He knows how human I am, and how I often am lost in this "spiritual amnesia" (as Ann Voskamp so beautifully coined it).
I drank it in; let it fill every crevice of every dark place within my bones.
YES - this is a place we have not known - and we are absolutely blind. He will lead us. YES - this is darkness to us. He will turn it into light right before our awestruck and humbled eyes. YES - this is most certainly a rough place. Yet even as I write, He is making it smooth. He promised it would be so. And I believe Him with all of my anguished and joy-filled heart.
YES - this is a place we have not known - and we are absolutely blind. He will lead us. YES - this is darkness to us. He will turn it into light right before our awestruck and humbled eyes. YES - this is most certainly a rough place. Yet even as I write, He is making it smooth. He promised it would be so. And I believe Him with all of my anguished and joy-filled heart.
