Learning to Lose

I just want to encourage you not to underestimate the significance of communicating the truths you are learning about yourself in this season with your children - regardless of their age. They understand far more than we realize and will absorb whatever part of our heart we decide to share with them.

Last night, Keziah had a melt down and I decided I was going to keep pursuing her heart until she softened it.  It took 1.5 hours...basically the whole night after dinner. I was frustrated but I knew I wouldn't let anyone else get away with just numbing him/herself and I couldn't let her either. Even if it took the better part of two hours. She had cheated in a game we were playing as a family...and she still lost the game. I called her out on it and she threw a fit. I asked her what the problem was with how she chose to play the game and she pretty much blamed me for her own issue - several times. See? Community in my own family:-) Haha! I asked her why it hurts her to lose. She told me that losing is bad. I asked her why and if she thinks that God believes losing is bad. I reminded her of God "losing" His Son and explained to her that I have gotten my best gifts after losing. Then I told her about the miscarriages and how we lost two times before receiving my most precious gift - Keziah and then Mia. She reminded me of our last miscarriage (this year's loss)...she wanted to know what gift I got from losing that child. I didn't have an answer.

My girls are infamous for asking me questions I am not prepared to answer.  Questions that force me to admit I am on my own journey with God and that I often don't understand Him myself.  If I fake it, they will see right through me.  And I refuse to confuse them with my religious bull.  Either God is going to tell me the answer to their questions or else I'm pretty committed to letting them see how lost I really am. 

So I sat for a moment and asked the Lord to help me answer this question.  What gift had I received from losing that child?  That's when I heard God speak to my heart..."you got healed." 

Over a year ago, some close friends started to have a miscarriage on the very due date of the child we had miscarried 9 months prior.  When they contacted Janelle and I and asked us to pray, I realized that a piece of my heart was unhealed and that it was getting in the way of my ability to trust God.  Though I hadn't identified it beforehand, the root of my heartache was founded upon the idea that I was unworthy of having a son, and that God had been punishing me for the mistakes I have made in the past.  There are a million reasons why I should know better than to believe this and I assure you that I'd have argued adamantly against this lie were it coming from you or anyone else.  And yet, the sad truth is that a piece of me believed it.  As I poured my heart out to the Father that afternoon, I had a powerful encounter with Him and experienced in a fresh way the freedom and joy that comes from choosing to trust the Father's love.  That was over a year ago.

So...that's what I told her.  My gift in the middle of a great loss was my very own healing.  She looked at me in a way that expressed she was confused by my answer, but that she trusted I meant what I said.  Her spirit perceived what her mind could not comprehend.  

I explained that losing is a road that leads to learning and that what I learned from this last miscarriage is that God isn't angry with me when I lose. And then I told her the same..."It's ok to lose, Kezi. It doesn't mean you are bad."  She started to cry again.  We both did.  She put down her walls and layed with me on her bed quietly for a few minutes.   I know she is only five but her spirit is quick and perceives truth and vulnerability. Then we joked around about farts for the next 15 minutes and I put her to bed:-)

Ok, so not your typical approach to a child cheating at Shoots and Ladders.  I get it.  But I want my kids to fall in love with Jesus - the real one. Not the one religion taught me to fear. I want them to be ok with making messes and having issues and to realize that in the end, it's about loving Him and being secure in His love for us.

Some kids can learn the ABC's and relate them to animals, that's ok - not wrong at all. But this week, Mia is learning D...D for destiny. Today she told me that sometimes she feels like her destiny is to clean her room when Mom says. Ha!  She continued, "But really my destiny does have to do with rooms. Cause I am destined to make rooms to save "Jewishes" and keep them safe."  

Now you tell me how I'm supposed to make Mia write the letter D on lined paper after that, without first explaining the story of a little girl who was just like her in the Bible. The one who God gave a "d-for destiny" and made her a princess who saved many Jewish lives. Of course, I'm speaking of Esther. But Mia will tell you rather frankly, if you ask, that Esther is an ugly name and that she should have kept her old one.