“I could never imagine you not on the top of your game!” Those words always cause a moment for the pause when I reflect back on my life. During the years I was raising my children the alarm clock didn’t have to go off I had an internal clock which operated on motherly instinct. I can pride myself in that out of my three children when they were attending school they may have been late a few minutes sometimes but they hardly ever missed a day, maybe once or twice in all their years of schooling.
During the times they were on top of their game my adrenaline was overflowing and I was on a higher level as well. The Lord knows I spent more time on bended knees when I was rearing them than I ever have in my life. I spent more time in Church when I was rearing them than I ever had in my life. I spent more time on the pulpit reading scripture and chanting praises every Sunday than I ever have in my life. I was not absent from my children, I was present in life because of them. They were everything I lived for, I breathed for, got up for. They were the three things in the superficial life prior to them which made me realize I could call mine. The folks who can’t stand me now because of my persona really wouldn’t have been able to tolerate me had it not been for my having them. My children: they changed my whole nature, my whole outlook on life.
We did a lot of activities together. The activities were the up moments. They were the reward moments when being a parent was all worth it. When we would drive up to Maryland to go to Ocean City to go on the carnival rides, sit on the beach, go to the shops, go visit friends or family in DC, Maryland, North Carolina, or New York. The events like the ice shows, the circus, the games, the concerts, the school functions, the band performances, the orchestra performances, our family group musical performances, everything was all worth it from our humble beginnings and beyond. The holidays were always joyful we celebrated at home and went visiting many other homes during the holidays. Birthdays were off the chain. I was happy they were here and I was even more excited by the fact they were mine. I genuinely wanted my children to be happy and share with them openly how much happiness they brought to my life.
As they grew older we seemed to have grown apart. They had their lives to live. They had their own children to be concerned about. I felt like I became a player confined to the dugout. I recall the emptiest five years of my life was when I was an empty nester the first time around. It was a hit I didn’t see as a hit until years later. It was a hit I brought on all myself. Sometimes it is not such a good thing to be an enabler. I had to let go and let God. I prayed long and hard they would be successful. They took it as me letting go of them when I asked them all to move out in thirty days. I saw it as something I had to do to get them to realize life was real. I wasn’t going to be able to be able to hold them in my grasps like they were young innocent children all their lives. I didn’t want to let go of them but I had to let them go. There is a difference. They feel like I put them out and I feel like I put them up to realizing the full potential they had within that they were not putting to its optimal use. They were smarter than me, they had more common sense than me, they looked better than me, had more energy than me. I just couldn’t put my finger on anything else than the issue with them was actually me. I had to let go, either they would sink or swim. Now I’m wondering why that saying is reversed. Why couldn’t it be swim or sink?
Anyways, it is when the real hits started coming at me like fast balls. I kept paying their cell phone plans because I wanted to be able to reach them. They stopped taking my calls. I left their phones on for years anyways. I figured they would call once they realized I was doing what I did more so for them than for me. I was hurting. They didn’t know it because they were hurting too. I was hurting so much there would be many days I wouldn’t make it to work until 10 a.m. I figure the only reason I wasn’t fired is because without them my work became my refuge. I was excellent at reconciling accounts. I became better at automating processes. My work became my escape. I was selling more houses than I ever sold so I quit my job. I always wanted the freedom to go it alone. I literally stepped out the bed one morning and wondered why am I doing all this? I really felt like I had nothing to work for anymore. I wasn’t married, my kids were gone. I think a lot had to do with how hard I was working to get ahead and it was the office politics which I felt were an unnecessary evil which ended up being the most decisive factor in my stepping out of the work-a-day world. The thing that should be separated from work is politics they really should have let faith stay. I would prefer to know someone’s religious aptitude rather than their political aptitude.
Getting back on the topic of my children, I didn’t realize how much of an enabler I was becoming. It was like I was out in left field with the bases loaded chasing down a fly away ball hit way above my head too high to think about catching. The only thing I could do was turn around and chase the ball down once it landed and rolled. I was running my fastest to get to the ball, pick it up, and then turning back around running close enough into the field to throw it at someone to throw it into the catcher before everyone on the opposing team ran into home plate and scored. I stand there on the field panting and out of breath with my head bent over, my hands on my knees gasping for air and feeling the defeat. There have been moments in my life when I felt everyone on the opposing team had made a home run before I could get the ball to the catcher to end the reign of terror. It really makes me wonder about those folks who look at me and dislike me right off because they feel like I’m the type of woman who gets everything I want in life. Really, and is that really a real reason to dislike someone? Let them keep thinking it day end and day out because sometimes as a person thinks it comes to pass.
Okay after a loss I practiced (prayed) things would get better. As my adult children got older, the hits began coming too fast for me to keep up. It reminded me of when my children and I would go to a batting cage and as the time progressed the speed of the balls coming at them revved up. I remember standing behind them individually as their turn to bat came up and holding them in my arms and helping to guide their arms to try and help them with swinging faster to hit the balls. I let go as their confidence in their own abilities set it in which I could normally tell when they began saying “yay” and smiling. The internal instinct in me took over to guide them to be their best and letting go once they had reached their plateau.
One thing that resonates loudly in my mind is when someone said to me one day “they couldn’t ever imagine me being off my game.” Needless to say hits kept coming so fast one day I dropped the bat. My arms were sore from swinging. It got to the point it felt like I was the only one going up to bat. Everyone else was sitting on the bench talking like she is crazy because the game has been lost.
I am here today to save I serve a risen savior. People can practice discrimination, they can practice religious persecution, they can practice not liking me, they can black list me, they can black ball me, they can despitefully use me, but I have a heavy hitter who is always on my side and I call him a friend and his name is Jesus. We have the same Father and his name is God. They have been in my court, in my corner at the times in my life when I have been forsaken by others the most.
When I look like I’m off my game and I’m down I’m still swinging by the grace and mercy of King Jesus. During those times when I am panting for my last breath I take comfort in knowing the breath of life comes from God Almighty.
I stopped swinging, and dropped the bat and it felt like the balls kept coming at me and just hitting me as an open target. Prayer changes things. The one word of hope comes from places sometimes we don’t even know they’re coming. Sometimes it is not what we go through but what others go through which renews the hope in us. God has a way of delivering a message that will soothe those tired arms, make you pick up that bat and cause you literally cause you to be a heavy hitter again.
Today I it is weighing heavy on my soul one of my babies need me for moral support and Lord up in heaven above know I’m on my way. Sometimes just seeing my face gives them the “ I got this all by myself” attitude they need to succeed.
Whether it is here in the U.S. or abroad God is omnipresent for wherever I go I hope it is God will which sends me to keep batting for my soul is worth the redemption. It’s not a global thing it is a noble thing, he is “King of Kings, Lord of Lords”- Revelation 19:9. I am not perfect and don’t even come close but in all things good and righteous: “To God Be the Glory”.
I’m going to keep swinging to hear those words “well done my good and faithful servant.” I know there are still going to be some fast balls, some curve balls, and some balls to come right at me and hit me in the gut I’m just asking and praying for the strength to handle them all and hit a home run a time or two in Jesus name, Amen.
