Safe House

I write this post with a heavy heart, but not without hope. A weight has been put on me and I can’t lift it on my own. This post could be forever long, because so many thoughts, so many emotions, so much to carry, but I’ll try to keep it short and somewhat formed. I won’t share names, but I want to share the realness of it.
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Yesterday with another couple, we launched a parenting class at Brentwood Church. Kevin Van Wynsberg and I are far from perfect, far from having it figured out and far from even being fully experienced in this area, BUT we are not far from the struggle. We are in it. We carry a heart of passion and knowledge towards the subject that we can’t just sit on. We have to move. We have to do something. And yesterday revealed that. Yesterday’s launch revealed why this is so needed. We had about 8 couples in the room and we opened the floor to them. We wanted to get to know them, their kids, and what was one thing that’s hard for them as a parent and what was one thing that brings them joy in it. We thought we’d get simple quick sort of surface level answers, but we didn’t. We got the complete opposite and were blindsided by the truth. People opened their hearts in BIG ways. It was as if they were taking a big sigh of relief, because they finally had a safe place to share, to say something and let it out. They finally had a place to get out from under some weights and expose the true strengths they carry. 

For example: We had a dad cry when talking about the lack of a father figure growing up. The lack of having a father example in his own life burdens his heart and mind so much, and he wishes to tears he had a father example to go by. This lack causes him great anxiety as he feels like he’s blindly fathering his own. He so desperately wants to get it right. He places the hammer down on himself and longingly wants to hear he’s not messing it up. We had mom’s tell how they don’t like being a mom. They don’t like the job, it’s not what they envisioned for themselves in the sense of meeting the standards of it. These moms are goal setters, doers and women of success and strength, but when it comes the role of being a mom their confidence flies out the door. I see the heart though, what they so desperately want is to get it right. So much so that the joy is being sucked out and they’re falling suffocated by it. The overarching voice from the men is that they don’t have the patients to parent. And the heart of the women is that they are guilty. They’re screwing it all up. One mom cried, because of fear that her children will lose her at a young age. You could sense that there is a deeper rooted pain from where this fear is coming from and honestly I get it. I know that fear and pain all to well in my own life. Life can feel like a smack in the face when it takes people from us, which then trickles down to how we live, love and lead. We had parents with special needs children and as a mom without a special needs child, I can only imagine how lonely that road must get. How exhausting it must be. How hard. How confusing. As each cry of the heart was spoken I felt the sting in my own heart. I could relate in some way. I could have shouted YES! Me too! to almost every word, tear, joy, fear, struggle, burden, hopelessness spoken of. 

I really want to be able to tell you that the joys outweighed the hardships in that room, but honestly in this moment I don’t think they did. Something in this parenting thing is ripping the joy from people and leaving them dry. The weight is HEAVY. If you watch a professional weightlifter you won’t ever see them smiling under the pressure of the bar. You see them fighting for their life to get the weight up and off. Is that what parenting has come to? Is that what it really is? Is that what God created it to be like? In my heart of hearts I don’t think so. If we could all put even just one finger under that bar - imagine how easy it would be to lift. Have you ever spotted someone doing a bench press? The person is crushing under the weight, but you put only two fingers under the bar and they magically lift it like a feather. Some lifts are different and it takes a lot more effort from the person spotting them, but not always. Can we make parenting look like this? Can we give each other some breathing room to smile again. To find the joy in it? Can we get the joy to outweigh the hardships? Can we take back what the enemy has stolen and with a loud voice shout, I AM ENOUGH. I AM, BECAUSE HE IS THE I AM. I AM MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR MY KIDS - THROUGH CHRIST, BECAUSE HE IS ENOUGH IN ME! Can we shout out GRACE GRACE GRACE from the roof tops and start loving ourselves again? I don’t have the answers for it, but I’m determined to help these parents & myself find the path of joy in the love that that we fight to give our children. 

Apart from the inevitable heaviness carried into that room, we had some great laughs too. The type of laughs that connect people in a way that says, I get you, you get me and so we can laugh about it together. We can stair the crazy into the eyes and say, “you cray, but you also funny.”

I jokingly compared our class to an alcoholics anonymous class, yet our vice is being a parent. Hi, I’m Melanie and I haven’t been sober (childless) for 4.5 yrs. You get my drift...

I’m scared and excited to dive deep and swim things up to the surface with this group. Life’s too short for us to beat ourselves up like this. Life’s too beautiful to cover it up with regret. Life’s too valuable to not want to live it. Our children are too precious to not have a mom and dad who have joy and security in what they do. I hope and pray this group becomes a safe haven for those in need and the hearts that need rejuvenation and encouragement start to find it. 

So if you think of us, pray for us. We see some people trying to lift some heavy weights and we want to help them, but we know we can’t do it alone. This workout takes an army of spotters. 

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Book: Safe House By: Joshua Straub