However, other times she sets out a routine where we just go through things with no definitive stopping point. I swear she is the worst person for keeping time as my left bicep burn from 45 bicep curls while my right bicep is feeling a bit neglected because we only went as long on that side for roughly 20 curls. I have found myself to really struggle on those days when I am unsure how many reps I will have to repeat or how many minutes I have to hold a plank. On these days, I often quit, give up, set my weights down, collapse on the floor. Mind over matter and matter won. As I realized this pattern in my morning workouts, it dawned on me why I have been having such a hard time with my attitude toward life, toward God, toward my kids….I lack perseverance when I can’t see the end in sight.

When I first started this journey of motherhood, I saw the end in sight in the typical textbook ways of looking at main developmental milestones. However, as milestones with my son are being missed, skipped, and delayed further and further, I am beginning to realize more and more how I may be having to be his primary care person for a lot longer than I ever planned. I hope to work my way out of a job, launch him successfully into the world as his own being apart from me, but as he grows, my job is not lessening at all. In fact, it just keeps getting more intense if anything.

We are heading into another assessment for my son to see where things are at with him in his skills so that we can better decide how to treat him with therapy and medication. I have a lot of fear with this assessment because, now that he is as old as he is, he qualifies on the DSM for many more mental health labels than he ever has before. My husband brought good perspective to my fears, reminding me that a label does not change who he is but that it helps us truly focus on how to best help him along. Much of the fear stems from the truth that can come out of them, the forecast and outlook that typically comes with them.

I am far away from the notion I held 4 years ago that, with a couple of rounds of therapy, we would be “over the hump,” as people always told me–that we would be able to arrive at a place where he could function “normally” and we could go on with life, looking back at said hump with a sense of pride of accomplishment or growth or whatnot. The premise of “no cure” and looking at “how to best maintain” and “find a new normal” are the current buzz lines.

So here I am trying to hold the perfect plank in life. However, instead of knowing that it’s just a two minute plank hold and finding strength in the instructor’s voice yelling out the significant milestones in our time…30 seconds, 1 minute, 1:30…,I hear no instructor counting, I see no milestones in sight, just an endless hold.

I always get really mad at myself when I yell at my kids. Nothing makes me feel more inferior and incompetent than when I lose control and yell at them. So here I sit, feeling like a terrible mom, and I decided to write about it instead of continue to wallow in my own muddled mind. I went back to my son after I had called down. He was mad at me, mad at me for yelling at him and he clearly expressed his anger in words to me. I said I was sorry for yelling, that I was wrong to have yelled at him like that. He stopped his angry pursuit and said he forgave me. I said I’d try harder next time. Funny thing is, I see the roles reversed more often. He looses control, it makes me angry, he cools down and comes and apologizes to me. Maybe he’s not so “different” after all. His “loosing control” is just bigger than mine, but the roots are the same. I see the same spiral downward afterwards in both of us, too. Oh, that my children would just do what I say and not what I do!

The root of my mood is that, on a day where my mind should be focused on the many things I have to be thankful for (and, yes, I readily admit that I have much to be thankful for even during the not-so-fun part of the journey), my mind was fixated all day on the mistakes of my past. I have done a lot of stupid things, and I have a really hard time letting go of them. I also am nowhere near perfect, yet I still strive to be. I wish I could figure out how to let go of my past mistakes, especially when the fruit of those mistakes pop up every now and again.

I thought of this blog, which has the theme verse on the opening page as Hebrews 11:1, boldly declaring that I had the faith to see God be glorified in my family’s hard situation, that no matter what came my way, I would stand firm on the Rock, able to weather any storm.

I don’t know when I actually came to the end of my own faith, but I am sure it was at least a year ago if not longer. Yes, I still look at that verse longingly wishing I could “feel” that same intensity of emotion and resolve that I had way back then that God would do glorious things and incredible miracles to restore this broken family.  I can honestly say that I believe God can do miraculous things, that He can restore this family. If He raised Lazarus from the dead after 4 days, surely He can fix the brokenness in my family. It’s just that I don’t have faith that He will. It’s almost as if I think God is fickle; I am not able to discern any pattern of miraculous healing versus the many times He allows endless suffering. Maybe, I am just one of those people who need to endlessly suffer, that I will not see the restoration of this situation until in heaven, face-to-face with my Maker.

Back to my husband’s question regarding our son….I had to be honest with myself and admit that I couldn’t see the end. I could’t even fathom our son able to handle everyday ups and downs of life safely, causing serious consequences as an adult. My husband graciously said he understood why I felt that way; after all, I was the one in the trenches 90% of the time, experiencing the worst of the worst of our son’s manifestations of his disability. He gave the analogy that I have been clearly in the forest for so long that surely I could not see the trees, much less the light at the edge of the forest. It’s true, I think that it will be a miracle if my son is able to live a normal adult life given the immense challenges and rather extreme issues of anger that he deals with on a daily basis. I have no more faith that anything good or positive can come of this journey. There is no more feelings of standing on the Rock to weather the storm. It’s more of an issue of being able to see the Rock and pray for mere survival from the storm.

I don’t know what to even make of the reality that I am past the edge of my own faith in this journey. My husband pulled out his Bible and read a Psalm to me that we had always felt had great significance for our son. He read it aloud after explaining to me that he still fully believes that God wants us to be parents to this particular child, that there was some reason–a damn good one, too–that we were on this journey. We cried together as he read Psalm 139, unsure of the path before us but declaring some notion of faith in the unseen which we are continually walking toward.

Here is my present reflection on today:

I struggled to get my son to bed tonight. He was so mad that his sister gets to stay up later than him (she napped today; he didn’t). He clenched his fists around the stair railing threatening to hurt me and his sister, threatening to kill himself, and throwing objects of little consequence now and again. I struggled to remain calm, keeping back my own fuel from the fire. I said little and tried yet again to give him as little attention as possible, yet keeping the dog and his sister safe, in hopes that he would see that this type of behavior does not get him attention (a rather impossible task when he pushes it to such unsafe limits…). Anyhow, at one point in his melt down, I heard him kicking his bedroom wall, screaming at the top of his lungs that he wished life was easier. He was yelling at God, asking why God made him go through such a terrible life, why he couldn’t just make life work, why God didn’t help him more, and then he begged God to just let him be done with life. I didn’t answer his questions. Instead, I questioned whether or not he was pouring out his own heart or somehow intuitively carrying on with my thoughts and feelings.

I barely grace this house with my presence anymore; I try to be kind and respectful with my kids and husband as I go about my days with them, but my heart is carefully hidden away from them. My mind continually replays events of the past or conjures up dreams for the future, rarely stopping to see and be with the present moment at hand . It hurts to do so. I can’t put that pain into words yet, but I run from that pain a lot.

Instead of getting angry at my son tonight, I sat quietly with him and even envied him a little that he was “young” enough, or whatever justification I can give him, to lay on the floor kicking and screaming the very questions I have in my heart, too.

The verse literally burned in my heart–in a good, God-convicting way–because my heart has been so heavy about life all week. This week marked a new low for me, I think, based on the shear number of poop-filled underwear I had washed out and also determined by the ridiculous number of black and blue bite marks adorning my arms from several very violent melt-downs from my son. I haven’t even been able to argue with God this week about this so-called “calling of motherhood” on my life. I have merely been giving Him the silent treatment, an “I’m so done with motherhood, God” cold shoulder. Luckily, in the darkest part of the week’s valley my sister called, and although I wasn’t at a place I could talk, I answered the phone and just asked for her to pray for me and hung up. I was so close to getting in the car and driving away: “Sorry, God. This week has crossed the line. I don’t care if I’m not a good or faithful servant. I’m done!”

So, I’m not really sure why I wanted so badly to go to church on Sunday since God was not my favorite being this week, but when I heard the John 15:13 verse, I realized that perhaps God was responding gently to my cold-shoulder treatment, drawing me in to what I really did not want to hear: this commandment that Jesus was exhorting His followers to do is a lot deeper than I had ever imagined. In my eyes, it would be much easier to come across the situation some day where I could die for a friend. That situation seems so definitive, a hard decision at first since no one wants to die, but in the moment, perhaps, a clear opportunity to carry out this command. However, a daily laying down of my own desires, my own ego, my own plans and agenda every day, day after day for many years seems like a bit much. Can’t this Christianity thing be a little easier?

I want my own life. I want to make my own plans. I want to decide when I wake up, when I eat, what I do with my time throughout the day, my own goals to work toward, and the biggest thing I have been wrestling with is that I want my ego to be much more intact. (Sheesh! I’m sure the next place God will draw me to are some passages on pride!!)

Anyhow, I went away from the message with a deeper understanding of what Jesus was really telling his disciples to do here. I have not come to some profound resolve about all of this, and even today as I tried to step away from the motherhood madness to reflect and write, my daughter interrupted me. I calmly closed my laptop and listened to her chatter, marveling how my inner dialogue was a fight between two realities–one that just wanted to ignore her and do my own thing and the other that prodded me to listen, be present and love her for a few minutes before she wondered off to something else.

If anything, the bigger picture I am taking away from my week is found in the context that this whole verse is set in. It is the grand finale of the parable of the vine the branches where Jesus talks about the fruit of the branch being possible only if it is connected to the vine. My cold-shoulder toward God for the week pretty much indicates where I was at in regards to the vine. No wonder I have not been able to love those God has put in my life for me to love.

I read over the beginning entry that I wrote a couple of years ago, and the verse that I chose to center things on (Hebrews 11:1) struck me completely differently than I remember it hitting me back then. I used to see that verse as some kind of pillar of hope, some great statement to aspire to–you know, the part that talks about faith being the substance of hope. Oh, and the great visions of hope and dreams that I built on what God could do with me and my family were big ones. I was filled with so much hope for how God could restore things in me, my family, my situation. My faith rested on the idea that God would fix things in the now.

However, over the past few years, God has brought my attention to the last part, the part that testifies how faith is “evidence[d] of things not seen.” That’s where I am at right now, a place that feels more like a lack of faith than anything. I no longer have great aspirations of what the “victory” or “redemption” would look like. I can’t see the trees from the forest right now, and as I held back my sons fists that tried to pummel me the other day after I put him in a time out for hitting his sister, I realized how weak my faith is right now that anything will be different.

Actually, as I reflected on it, I realized that I have probably come to the end of my own faith and hope about 6 or 7 months ago. Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t believe that God is a big God or that He doesn’t want to redeem this situation. It is more a shifting in perspective. I used to rest my hopes in the ideas that I could see in this earthly life of how God could change the circumstances, my own dreams of the good that God would bring here from this mess.

I have begun to come to terms with the idea that I might not see any redemption in the physical, that the purpose, the good, the redemption would be seen in the spiritual realms alone in the after life instead in the flesh like I have built my hopes and dreams on.

The strange thing about all of this is that nothing out of the ordinary happened today. It was my son’s last day of school, and to celebrate, a bunch of the other moms of friends in his class decided to have a picnic in the park for a fun play time right after school let out. I have, perhaps, my own routine to mentally prepare myself for a group play date with my son, who, in typical sensory-processing-disorder fashion, has a fairly rough time at such events, yet he is so excited at the idea of a fun play time on a playground with his friends. My routine goes something like this: give up the notion that this is about me and my needs and remind myself that this play date is another chance for much-needed social coaching; run through the socially acceptable calming methods if he starts to escalate; think through anything he may have on his person which could and would be turned into a weapon to hurt someone; prepare a few random tidbits about my day that he would be interested in order to act as a distracting tool if he begins to escalate; scan area for all potential things that could be used as weapons and/or cause bodily harm if an impulsive move is made; pray for strength and peace to walk him through anything if need be, and once again remind myself that although it would be really nice to relax and talk with other mom, that most likely will not happen, and I need to let that expectation go.

I knew when he walked out to my car when I picked him up from school that it was going to be touch-and-go for this play time. He had his fists clenched and his teeth grinding. It had been a hard day–one of his buddies pulled his arm on the playground too hard so he was mad at him; he didn’t get to say any of the words in the daily word game; one of the other little boys coming to the play group had his light saber along while my son had left his at home–way too many things for him to not have control over. I gave him the option of just having our own picnic and skip the play group, but that was certainly not the right choice in his mind. I went into calming mode, trying to walk him through a change in attitude and some relaxation while brainstorming how to get my daughter to the play group to play with her friend who would also be there while giving my son extra space to transition before having to go into a group social situation.

Needless to say, it didn’t go well. There was another group of girls at the play ground that he thought surely had no right to be there when he and his buddies were supposed to be playing on this particular public playground. He began the play time by shoving one of the girls over and then yelling at the girl’s mom to “shut up” when she tried to intervene. Then he went off on a verbal and physical tierade on me as I tried to get him away from the situation. I thought I had him calmed down, but when he went to apologize to the girl and her mother for his behavior, he flipped out again, calling me an idiot (in front of the very shocked mom and little girl) and running off.

I tried giving him some space for awhile, and he chose to try to re-enter…only to then knock over one of his friends and kick the other buddy…and back to flight mode…more space…more clenched fists and jaw…more space..some verbal threats of killing everyone…more space. Finally, right as everyone was getting ready to leave, he came around and was able to play reasonably well. Yep, another group play time with my son. Nothing particularly out of what is normal for him.

Then, after getting home from this play time, I changed 2 pairs of poopy underwear after sitting with my daughter (who still refuses to poop in the potty after a year of being potty trained in every other way) for 20 minutes in the bathroom, going through our silly little routine I work through with her to try to help her relax enough to poop on the potty. Again, nothing out of the ordinary here–at least not for over the past year….

So why the tough day? Why did I break down in tears as I fixed the hole that has been in the fence since the day we moved in here 6 years ago (the one that absolutely needed to be fixed right now!!)? Walking to the mailbox is an experience that doesn’t really illicit tears any other day, but today it did. I will be regretting the mound of cookies I ate, too, which perhaps distracted me for 15 minutes at best.

Grief. I still grieve normal. Anger. Anger at God for making motherhood be my refining fire. Resentment. Resentment towards a beautiful little boy who has some needs so great that I cannot fill them on my own strength.

Now, I am not so delusional that I think everyone has it easy and I’m the only one with issues to work through. However, what I grieve is the “normal” that other moms get that brings them joy or even fills them up. The other moms at the play group had a lovely picnic and talked the entire time about all sorts of stuff that we moms like to talk about. I heard them laughing and chatting, and they were giving each other hugs and last-minute encouragements about things as we all walked out to our cars. I was maybe able to be present to the mom group 5 minutes, but one would argue if I was actually fully present to them as I tried to engage in the conversation only to have to dart away to get a stick out of my son’s hand before it came crashing down on another kid’s head.

I wish I could go relax while my kid played with friends. The one time I did relax and engage in the conversation, I was jolted away by hearing my son call another mom an idiot. “I’ll be right back.” “Just a minute, he has a stick.” “Oh, thanks for letting me know that he is saying that. I’ll go talk to him right away….” “I’m so sorry my son just hit your child; I’ll go talk to him right away. Thanks for letting me know.” My common phrases with the mom’s group do not run too deep. I don’t think I am a helicopter parent, but I’m sure I look like one, flitting around the park throwing out calming ideas and semi-valid choices for him to make some positive choices within the play. I guess if I was a good helicopter parent, 3 kids wouldn’t have been hurt during play time today.

I’ve had a glimpse at the grass on the other side now that my daughter is of the age where her friends are just getting together for little play times and birthday parties. She just waltzes off and starts playing with other kids: no drama, no hitting, no struggles for power with other kids over toys or what to play together. The times when it can be just her and friend and no big brother are very far and few between, but I am amazed at how nice it must be for other moms to have play dates with kids all the time. No wonder it is such a suburban thing to do. Kids play. Mom’s chat. Everybody goes home happy and filled. If anything, my grief, feelings of anger and resentment, and overall lack of being able to do today without tears show where I am at right now–in great need of being filled more because life is currently taking too much out of me.

It’s a large plank, and it will take a long time for God to fully take this one out, especially with my nasty habit of trying to help God in this regard. The more I try fiddling with it and trying to remove it myself, the less I am able to focus on my own baggage from the day and hand that over to God so that it doesn’t get slung at my husband. I was thinking about this small change in habit when my husband came back from a business trip the other day. It had been a particularly difficult time with the kids, both in the extreme amount of poop I was cleaning up from my daughter and the number of times I was called an idiot or worse from my son. When my husband entered the house, 20 minutes past the time he had told me he would be home, I was able to smile, give him a hug, and be present to him. Some may call this change simply a case of pulling one’s head out of one’s ass; I would like to think it is a bit of spiritual transformation happening in my heart.

I met with my pastor a few weeks ago now so that he could “check in and see how you are doing.” I have come to realize over this last year that I no longer like checking in with anyone or, worse yet, catching up with someone who has not seen me for awhile. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about what the day-to-day looks like. Thankfully, I have no high school reunions coming up. At this point, I realize that I am still trying to simply look at reality, face my life, stay in the moment. Perhaps forcing myself to write a bit more than I have been over the last several months will help me close the gap a bit.