“Mom, sometimes you’re like the Hulk”

Update on the Gently + Quietly Project – Part 1

I sat down to write about where my gently + quietly journey has taken me, because some things feel as if they are finally formed and ready to be birthed, and I realized it has been nine months and almost two weeks since I made my original resolution and shared that I would complete a year of not raising my voice.

How fitting – I am full-term and slightly overdue to birth this next beginning…

I’m thankful for this subtle reminder that what I have to share today is not a failure and it doesn’t have to be fully developed, because birth is messy and it’s only the very first meeting of something that you will grow to know, love and understand.

. . .

My second son and I were curled up on his bed; his twelve-year-old-ness won’t often let me wrap my arms around him, so I rub his neck and tickle his side. We talk about sports, and why I won’t let him blow off schoolwork and chores. I praise him for listening to Jesus and ask for his input on some attitude issues. I tell him I love him and that I’m trying my best while his dad is gone, but that I know I fail often.

He says he loves me too… I see the “but” in his eyes.

“You can say anything David, I won’t be angry, I won’t be hurt.”

With his sly sideways grin, the boy I birthed answers, “I love you, but sometimes you’re kind of like the Hulk.”

We both laugh, and again I apologize, asking him if he thinks he is ever the thing that causes me to turn green. His answer is quick and certain, “Yes, but I’m not perfect.”

And there it is.

Neither am I, but this is my time to be more than I am. To be what I am meant to become.

He asks me who my favorite Marvel character is. I tell him I am not joking, it really is the Hulk. More than any of the other characters I am enthralled with who the Hulk is when he is not green. I understand his fear, and I see that sometimes his fierceness is needed to help others. He laughs, “Yeah I like him, but Iron Man is way better.”

I am not Iron Man. Not by a long shot.

This week I was hit hard by words from Lauren Winner, “I am beginning to see what this anxiety is about, to see its lineaments: it has something to do with being left alone to handle a situation I am not competent to handle; it has something to do with being known and unknown, with the sense that I go through life hidden, masked.”

Yes that is what the anxiety was about when I would curl up in the bedroom, a new bride, searching her Bible for peace because I had no idea how to live this new role. Being left alone to handle a situation I am not competent to handle is what the anxiety was about when I would look out my kitchen window each morning in North Carolina with babies at my feet and my husband at war, wishing I could see the trees and sun outside without always feeling a pang of fear. It’s what the anxiousness was about when I rocked sick toddlers to sleep while he was worlds away and dug my hands down deep in dirt hoping to make a lonely, foreign town feel a bit more like home.

I am not more competent now, but I know the One who is a bit better, and the fear has subsided somewhat. Still I am surprised when it rears its head so I go through so much of life masked as the one who absolutely can do all the things – homeschool, carpool, single parent, church, work – because I don’t want to be a bother or maybe I’m just so scared that if I’m known I will be unloved.

But then the keys are lost at a track meet in Los Angeles, the baby is screaming, the kids are tired, it is getting dark and I have to ask for help from teammates we barely know, “Can someone drive us, does anyone have room for a stroller and all our stuff?”

I can’t wait in this parking lot alone – I am not equipped to handle this.

I think maybe they are annoyed, or maybe they are just kind and helpful. I am not sure. What I am certain of is that I am not Iron Man, and these are the moments that break me. These and the little words that cut me to the quick, and a million more things.

When my son says, “Mom sometimes you’re like the Hulk,” I can hear him, and it’s ok. Because he is mine and there is no mask between us.

. . .

What I realized quickly about the gently + quietly project was that it is much more about intention and confession than about perfection. Brother Lawrence said of a nun who perplexed him that, “She seems to me full of good will, but she would go faster than grace. One does not become holy all at once.”

Maybe I was full of good will, but went a bit faster than grace and was discouraged when I did not become holy all at once.

Then I became overwhelmed because so many people wanted to know how, and I was just trying to learn myself. I am not a writer full of formulas. I have only the stories of my stumbling, sometimes surprised by victory, always carried by grace.

Brian Zahnd writes that, ” Christianity is a confession, not an explanation. We will attempt to explain what we legitimately can, but we will always confess more than we can explain.”

So I am off the hook. The problem is that I am also learning that Christ meant confession to happen within community. He never asked us to assume the rending naked vulnerability that confessing outside of those we have deep fellowship with requires.

I paused blogging about this gentle, quite journey because it has not sounded so gentle or quiet as I have hoped, and because each time I would read a comment by some well-meaning soul that said they “have never been a yeller” or  “used to be a yeller,” I felt labeled and misunderstood. I wanted again to be hidden and masked. Maybe this is you too? Because outside of relationship no one knows the words others hurl, the unfair hurts, the chaos, or the ridiculous situations that we just don’t feel we can possibly live up to.

But Christ does, and He draws us close to each other in the communion of saints. So when my son who knows much of me says that he loves me, but not when I’m green – I can listen, I can let grace change me, and I don’t have to hide in shame. Because he isn’t perfect, and he knows I know all the ways he isn’t and that I still love him with all I have.

So what does that mean for this project, this journey – this sanctification?

I will continue to confess to those close to me (and on this blog when the Spirit moves me to), and I will continue to seek a gentle, quiet, fierce strength in the Lord.

And along way as I discover pearls of wisdom, I will share some explanation here in hopes it can benefit another traveller, another anxious superhero living broken and heroically.

. . .

p.s. It’s hard to believe this little charmer is ever difficult to parent right? 😉