Parenting | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

When Waves of Mercy Crash Over My “If Onlys”

By Anita Mathias

Motherhood.

The land of If Onlys.

* * *

If only I’d been calmer when I was pregnant with her.

If only she’d had a higher birth weight.

If only I had breast-fed longer,

If only I had used better childcare,

Or no child-care.

If only I could have home-schooled,

Or read to the girls for longer,

Or helped them with homework,

Or spoken more positive words.

If only their parents had fought less.

If only, if only, if only, I wish….

* * *

And then, I feel them, from nowhere,

Waves of mercy, waves of grace.

They flood over me,

they pulse through me.

They pour, pour, pour.

And I see.

* * *

It’s clay. It’s all clay.

The deep blue clay of the bitter years,

The black clay of one’s failures,

Clay with streaks of silver tears,

Clay red with one’s heart’s blood.

And the best thing I can do

With my if onlys and I wishs

Is place them

In the potter’s magnificent hands

And watch

As he kneads,

Shapes, forms, moulds.

And I see, amazed,

A glorious vase emerge,

Perfect for its purpose,

In my daughter’s life,

As in my own.

Not what we had asked for,

Not what we had dreamed of,

Not what we had expected.

Something different is being fashioned

With the azure of failure,

The silver streaks of tears,

The red of one’s heart’s blood,

And the black of sadness.

And it is beautiful.

* * *

And so, I will no longer look back,

In regret

At foolish, messy yesterdays.

I will entrust yesterday to your magic

hands, O Potter, and tomorrow!

I will sit today,

Where waves of love

Crash over me,

I will sit

Where waves of mercy pour over my life.

A Beautiful Train Wreck into Grace

By Anita Mathias

Sometimes, my tongue runs away with me, and I use my words to express anger and frustration rather than bestow grace and life, and those words steal life and strength rather than lavish them,

And I see the red flag of Jesus at the level crossing of my heart, and am stopped dead in my tracks.

But sometimes, I don’t stop, don’t listen to Jesus, and am out of control, a train rushing on…

I might eat whatever is quick and easy or delicious, rather than whatever is a blessing to my body.

Or my husband and I go on the attack

And there we go, rushing on, rushing on, knowing that no good can come from expressing runaway emotions, knowing that what one sows, one reaps…

On and on, we rush, speaking carelessly, smashing past the level crossing, speeding towards the onrushing train of consequences, heading for a crash.

And that’s when I understand grace.

For what I sow I should reap, right?

But that was before Jesus came.

* * *

My train hurtles on,

I drive recklessly, blinded by anger, negativity and despair

And Jesus sees that I am going to crash.

He steps in.

And still my train hurtles headlong; I am out of control. If I reap the consequences of everything I have sown, terrible things will happen.

But Jesus absorbs the crash in himself.

And I crash into grace; I crash into Jesus.

I am redeemed.

My marriage is redeemed

My mothering is redeemed.

Because of the grace Jesus died to give me.

Because of grace.

* * *

He keeps me on track, keeps my marriage on track,

Keeps me on the rails

Because he absorbed the impact at Calvary,

Of all this foolish, headlong sin.

Oh, I trust grace,

I trust mercy.

* * *

If the world were governed by dreary cause and effect,

And a woman could reap only what she sows,

Lord, who could stand?

But you stand between us and inexorable consequences

For this too we revere you.

For it’s not a mere mechanical world of crime and punishment.

It is a world of miracles.

It is the world of Jesus where he lives.

It is a world where Jesus stands in front of us,

Absorbs the impact of our bullet trains

Speeding at a million miles an hour towards self-destruction

He is smashed,

Rises,

And in that resurrection is hope.

For the risen Jesus now lives in me, restraining me

Helping me die to my wild self, making ever more room for the risen Jesus in me.

Helping me bear “in my body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in my body,” (2 Cor. 4:10).

* * *

Lord, sharpen my eyesight

Help me to see your red flags in time,

To repent in time

And when I do not,

When I crash,

Let me crash into grace!

The seventy times seventh chance,

The four hundred and ninetieth chance,

The infinite chances you lavish on me in the land of the living,

Grace for the asking,

The Holy Spirit for the asking,

Because you love me.

Have you experienced the inexplicable grace and goodness of God when you least expected it?

My Heavenly Daughter

By Anita Mathias

Irene saunters into my bedroom where I am trying to have quiet time. I inform her of this fact.
She wrinkles her nose. Well, she says, “Why don’t you just discuss things with your heavenly daughter?”

401 Ways to get Your Children to Work at Home by Bonnie McCullough

By Anita Mathias

401 Ways to get Your Children to Work at Home
Bonnie McCullough
I strongly recommend this book. I bought it when Zoe was three, and it gives step by step suggestions for all the tasks a child should have mastered between the age of 2 and 18–age-appropriate suggestions for what a child could do to help out in the kitchen, with the laundry, with cleaning, shopping, in the garden, mending, phone-calls re. hair-cuts, taking a bus, managing money etc.

On each of Zoe’s birthdays, we would look at what she should be able to do in terms of ironing, mending, cooking, vacuuming etc. At 15, she can cook and serve a 3 course meal to guests, (and has been able to for many years) handle her own laundry, clean if necessary (though we do have a cleaner) mend her own clothes, and do most domestic tasks. She will be supremely able to run her own little house when she is 18.

Irene has not been as enthusiastic about learning these age-appropriate tasks, but can do most things on the 11 year old list.

I would highly recommend this book so that when kids leave home, they have all the survival skills they need. I grew up in a home with a live in cook, live in maid, and live in gardener, and got married without the faintest idea of how to cook or clean, and just a faint idea of how to do laundry. Domesticity has been an uphill battle for me–but not for the generation I have brought into the world–if I have anything to say about it!

Having everyone pitch in leads to more family time, more family fun, a less frazzled mum, and more confident, less intense, and better-rounded children!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ways-Your-Kids-Work-Home/dp/0312299931/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282256543&sr=8-1

Irene’s back from PGL

By Anita Mathias

Irene got home yesterday from an amazing PGL weekend in Wales of canoeing, trapezing, archery, hiking…

She snuggled up to me, and said, “I missed you.”

“Oh, did you think of home and wish you were with us?” I asked, always one for specificity.

“Oh no!” she said in horror (Irene loves outdoorsy things!).

“I just thought fondly of you!”

And when did Irene become so grown-up and rational?

PGL does not, in fact, mean Parents Get Lost but is an acronym for Peter Gordon Lawrence – the founder of PGL

My heavenly daughter, Irene

By Anita Mathias

I generally sort out logistical challenges, like how to provide lunch for 15 people in the context of prayer.

I was puzzling this out, while Irene kept coming up with every more time-intensive and impractical menu suggestions.

“Hush, Irene,” I said, “I am trying to discuss this problem with my Heavenly Father.”

I said. “Well,” she said, “Why don’t you just discuss it with your heavenly daughter?”

In which Zoe gives Irene a shirt declaring “I am always right,” and Irene almost believes it

By Anita Mathias

Irene uses her beloved Ipod touch to email people, listen to countless books on tape, play scrabble and boggle, and get a word a day sent to her, which she memorizes.

She announced today that she is now officially cleverer than me because I didn’t know 5 of these obscure words! And because her birthday present from Zoe was a T-shirt which said, “I am always right.”

I am, alas, too old to make that claim.