Pots, pies, and paradigms

Quinn and I had a great discussion with some people we knew about homeschooling last weekend. I loved talking with them, but sometimes wonder at the where God wants me to go...what He wants me to do. So many pots, so many pies…the influence is spreading and I feel such joy being God’s tool.  I just wish I were confident that I was enough of a mom at home.  I try to kiss the booboo’s, help encourage and expect peace and respect in the home, set an example, hug, kiss, and read enough.  Just yesterday, Lily told me, after I had tried to tickle a sword away from her at the Ferguson’s, “Mom, no one has tickled me for a long time.  It felt so good!”

Good thing to remember.

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I had a slight paradime shift (even if I don’t know how to spell the silly word!)…oh wait!  Paradigm? Yep, that worked.  Anyway, it was as if I was getting a glimpse of Quinn…perhaps of him from his perspective.  The little boy inside that maybe sometimes feels like no one notices him, the man that his wife came back to “after everything else was taken care of,” the man known as “Mary’s husband” according to him. Funny, because I have always seen him as the confident leader, the man who didn’t need anything because he just is so confident and has it all together…but maybe he needs my love the way I desperately need his and just try not to demand it?  Maybe he is doing the same thing? 

 

I tried yesterday, after this “paradigm-shifting experience,” to treat him like the best friend that he is…the way that I would when we were engaged, “where is he?” “what is he doing?” “how can I show him I love him?”…you know, the way we do when we were first married.  It is funny how love can turn into a comfortable, “there” thing that just settles into a routine of it’s own, and, like all routines, requires less thought and emotional power to invest in and keep it going.  Love…what is it without emotion?  I guess it is something like they sing about in “Fiddler on the Roof,” which truly is still love, and I am grateful for that.   But don’t we all crave to be loved, admired, and sought out by at least one person?  What happens when the actions that accompany that love disappear…fade away…feel unimportant?

I do feel that love changes over time…and a degree of “comfortable-ness” is very, very desireable J.  However, the time and emotion we spend on routines become less…which is why we usually create routines, right, subconsciously or consciously?  But what happens when the deepest love of our life becomes routine?

It reminds me of an experience I had with my prayers a while back.  I started, and then mid-way started settling into my “routine” sayings as my mind wandered.  (This happens all too often.)  Realizing what was happening, I stopped myself.

I was hurting inside, and here I was at the threshold of the Master Physician of the Universe... babbling!  I started anew, and said, “Father, I am hurting.  I just want to feel you around me tonight.”

I knelt silently. The blanket of warmth that surrounded me was overpowering.  I felt Him.  I felt loved.  I felt safe.

But I had to focus on Him, focus on who He really was, not just a divine listening ear to my babblings, but my Father who had power to do something. 

What would happen if I really took time to focus on that person that has become part of the “routine” of my life?  Would he become more real, more powerful, too?