Thursday, October 18, 2007

Left Behind

It's been a while since I have blogged, I know. It's not been for lack of thoughts or inspiring insight, just simply the lack of time. Even now as I write this, the household tyrant may rise and demand a bloogyia (book) to be read to him...more like help open for him...So quickly on we go.

I traveled to the states recently with Leif while Chad went on a missions trip to Thailand. I had a great time, mostly, and Leif traveled well, mostly. A week before we were to leave the states Leif came down with croup, and so he was rushed off to emergency (with a 100 million dollar bill), since breathing, being a vital function, was becoming increasingly challenging for him. He was given some medicine which helped amazingly, thank God. The rest of the week was spent at home, fun plans canceled. The baby was ill.
Meanwhile Chad and associates were building a facility in northern Thailand at a children's home. They played with kids, built, and overall, just poured their hearts and lives out for these at-risk Akha kids.

Meanwhile, I was still holding a sick baby.

When we all returned home, it was a happy reunion! Leif was happy to see his daddy, and daddy was happy to be seen by us both. We traded presents, and hugs, and stories. As the stories came out, more and more I began to feel left behind. It is a drive of mine to do something big in the world. I want to make a change, and feel like I'm having an impact on my world. The more stories I heard the harder it became. I hadn't been able to go due to the tyrant. And I began more and more to ponder the things I couldn't do due to the tyrant. I began to feel more and more left behind. But less in a best-selling book kind of way, and more of a sad will-I-ever-be-anything kind of a way. I began to realize that I was being left behind in millions of aspects of normal life. Long walks of exercise being infringed by a child who wants to walk and no longer happy in the pram...a house that is maintained in an embarrassing mess due to his need to destroy mum's neat-ing handy work...studies left undone due to a brain that is coming undone...and a sense that more and more I am being expected by society to do more and more since I don't have a real job. Yet here I am, failing and definitely behind.

Days after me personal "Left Behind" saga had begun, I opened up a book, with no intention of really reading it. It just so happened to be a page on young missionary mums and what their job in ministry is. And to my amazement, I read what I already knew and believed in my heart. That missionary mums, along with regular mums, will find that their greatest contribution to the world, while their children are growing, is being an available mum. I realized that holding the little tyrant while he was ill will be looked on with as much favour from my heavenly Father as my husband's efforts in Thailand. I am reprieved.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the update. i love hearing whatever i manage to seek out about you and chaddy and lil lil. you're not alone in your yearning to feel something other than the heater kick on in your house, the feel of carseats and the lights from the local fast food stand. for me holding onto that tension makes all the difference, letting it keep you sharp instead of the way discouragement dulls the senses. you're are quite alive, rest assured and being an incredible woman. it's weird cuz i stopped by the the ol blog to just send you this stupid video, but what i got was insight and something that spoke to me. thanks. i miss the hell out you guys.

here's the stupid video that caused me to laugh and somehow want to send it to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmnt6QUaJw

love,chukk

emblem said...

Hey Erk,

I'm really glad you wrote this. I was thinking about it so much after what you shared at Rach's and I realised that all the while we had been to another country and been involved in grand work - God was trying to teach us how to be selfless and and all that time - you didn't have to learn you were doing it. You left us way behind.
Love you a lot.
Mel

Anonymous said...

dear erica, i come here just to hear how you are, and how motherhood is doing for you. you seem to be my "what i wish for in a daughter" kind of girl. but hearing you voice a yearning that i have only spoken to god so many times in the last 35 years really rings the bells of my heart. and i am so pleased that you have come to the same conclusion. children are the most blessed mess of our lives, we want them, we need them, we pour ourselves out then cant figure out why. kinda seems like moms should get 2 lives, one to live for thier kids and one to live for themselves....i am now back where i started that long ago. just me and hubby. and now i can live for me, sort of. but lots of things are now past my abilities. art school,glass blowing, writing several famous books. but i did raise several wonderful kids. its the whipped cream on the sundae of life. no matter what else you do or dont do, its the kids that end up being the success of your life. because if they fail as humans or as joyful people, we never get to enjoy much else. ask any mother of a kid on death row. so live there. and wait until you are just you again, and do what you will and remember, those children are the arrows we launch into the future. their joys will be yours just as if you experienced them yourself. this is my testamony. love ya mcm
claire