To be honest, this has been a very challenging season regarding parenting two children with childhood trauma. My youngest had all of his biggest traumas happen in the winter…born in need of life-saving surgery…found on a park bench at a day old… given that life-saving surgery shortly after…no parent to sit with him during the weeks of recovery in hospital…adopted-which to him must have felt like being kidnapped-by white people and taken swiftly to a foreign land…all in the winter months. Have you heard them say that the body keeps the score? Well, the entire winter season is what is known as a “traumiversary” for my youngest. They say that children give their parents their biggest emotions and tantrums because you are their safe person… but the trauma and the emotions (and the flying objects!) being directed at me have really stirred up my own childhood hurts. I try to be the adult in the room, but after they’ve said “I hate mom” or “mom doesn’t even care about me” the (literally) 40th or 50th time, I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Many adults can probably hear this from a child and ignore it because they understand that children are just trying to express their own grief and anger over their own losses, and it says nothing about you. But because I am still working through my own stuff, the words sting. Feeling like all of my tireless efforts to show love and care are not enough or not making a difference, well… it sucks sometimes. And they come at random and for the smallest reasons.

All of what I endure, of course, is nothing compared to what is going on in their hearts and bodies, and I also have had to do a lot of work to overcome the guilt of feeling my own emotions about their emotions, of giving myself permission and space to grieve how hard this is for my husband and I.

So I’ve honestly been feeling like a ship without an anchor, propellers stuck, tossing and turning in the high seas. Until I find myself a quiet moment and try to imagine His eyes, the eyes of the Beloved, on me. Until I can have space to use my imagination and see Him present in the day to day, I am lost at sea. So His eyes on me are both anchor and propeller. His eyes directed at me mean that He sees me. He is concerned about me and my everyday. He really is in the boat, though it feels like He’s sleeping, and I will not capsize if I can just steady my gaze on His eyes. Or maybe He’s out walking on the water, and if and when I’m ready, He will call and I will walk out onto the water to Him.