Love calls us to keep looking at our children. Watch as they suck on breast or bottle. Giggle when they take a bite of solid food for the first time and either lap it up or promptly spit it out. Gasp a little the first time they pedal a two wheeler and the bike wobbles but they stubbornly stay on board. Sigh and shudder when they get their Learner's Permit and we know that soon enough we'll be facing midnight vigils, waiting for them to come home. Behold, proud and teary-eyed, when they march down an aisle, either to receive a diploma or welcome a bride or groom, someone else's miracle now joined in love to ours.
But, during this life journey, sometimes it's hard to look. Hard because sometimes other emotions besides love or thanksgiving assail us. Sometimes it's anger. Other times, it's hurt. And then, for a time, we can lose sight of our child as a gift from God. Ann Voskamp tells of such a time in her book "One Thousand Gifts. She had just placed a vase of beautiful sunflowers in her house, breathed in their beauty, exalted, and suddenly two of her teenage sons began fighting, first verbally, and then one hurling toast in his brother's face.
"His brother rages red and I'm sucker punched and it's toast, yeah, but isn't it his heart and I shake the head stunned, losing words, and the child I ripened with, bore down and birthed from the heart, he turns....tears out a few more of the pulsing chunks (of toast) and where did I go wrong?
"....I can't shrug it off because it's the profanity of it, the desecrating of one made in the Image. I slam hands down on the table when I'd like to grab hold of his throat....
"'Why?' My mother-anger could crack vases.
"He's smirking.
"Why would you throw that at him?' I'm too shrill,... too blind-white angry."
Yet somehow in the midst of her anger, Ann realizes that she isn't really seeing the totality of the situation. Anger has overwhelmed her so much that she can't really "see" her children. Anger has temporarily extinguished her thanksgiving for the gift of this particular child who has battled with his brother and thrown toast at him.
"It's toast, and surely there's something behind it that I should seek out but I don't even care. It's my own face that obscures the face of God. How can I help this son of mine see when I can't see? The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace? Christ incarnated in the parent is the only hope of incarnating Christ in the child - yet how do I admit that people made in the Image can make me blind to God, my own soul contorting , skewing all the faces?
"A boy pounds a plate with a clenched fist. The other blithely butters toast. How do I fix this? Them? Me? In the messy, Jesus whispers, 'What do you want?' and in the ugly, I cry, ';I want to see - see You in these faces.' He speaks soft, 'Seek My Face.'
Anger and bitterness are crushing Ann's joy in God and joy in her children. Where is her faith? Her trust in the God Who gave her these miracles? Her thanksgiving in their presence even in the ugliness of their fighting?
"I have to want to see joy, God in the moment.
"It feels strange but I give thanks aloud, in a whisper: 'Father, thank You for these two sons. Thank You for here and now. Thank You that You don't leave us in our mess.....Thank You for toast. Thank You for cross-grace for this anger, for the hope of forgiveness and brothers and new mercies...''
One son, angry beyond endurance, pushes away from the table, pushes past his fuming brother, and leaves the room. Ann approaches her other son, striving to look deep into his heart. "Why is it so hard? Practice, practice..." She lays a hand on his shoulder; he bristles.
"'Can you tell me more? I'm ready, I really do want to understand.'"
"He jerks his shoulder to flip away my hand....We eye each other and mine beg and his ice. The lips I once traced after the lullabies, they turn surly and hard.
"'You never see what he does!' he leans into my face. "But you sure do always see what I do!' He wants to stare me down, shoot me down. This is old pus, infected wounds."
So begins a mother's journey to look deeper and deeper into the heart of a wounded son with Love's true vision, the vision God gives her. To hold him when he cries. To ease his heart. She could only do this because in God's grace she has put aside her anger at the children who in this moment appear ugly and unapproachable. With prayer to the One Who gave her children to her, she can see anew with God's clear vision that these children are still her beloved miracles, made in God's Image. Still beautiful, still hers. Now her job is to teach them forgiveness and peace. She can only teach them peace if her own heart is peaceful.
But sometimes, we cannot reach our own children when their hurts are too deep. Recently I spoke with a friend about his son's terrible car accident that happened years ago. At first his wife and he had feared that their son would be brain dead. Later they learned that one side of his body had been affected. The other parts of his brain could take over some functions, but not as efficiently, and it would be a long battle for his son to recover. The father told me that during this long battle, his son could not speak to him very much about what he was thinking and feeling. He would clam up, turn away. The father hurt inside at this seeming rejection by his son.
"All I could do," the father told me, "was be there for him. Day in, day out, night in, night out, just be there for him." Help him recover when he choked. Hold him up when he learned to walk backwards again. The father had looked at his son deeply, with the eyes of understanding love, and accepted his son's anger and pain and lack of confiding in him. In spite of his own inner hurt, he had chosen to be there, regardless.
And an unexpected miracle bloomed. "At first, my son was angry at God," the father said. "But there was this old man, at least seventy, a friend of the family, who visited him regularly. He would pray out loud. My son thought this was very weird. But after awhile he began to open up to this man. And he got over his anger at God for allowing this accident to happen. Today I can honestly say that it's my son's new faith in God that has helped him the most. Kept him strong. Kept him going."
Even when our children don't seem to want to "let us in" to their lives at a particular point, we can still keep our faith. We can trust that God loves these miracles He has given us so much that He will send other "angels" into our children's lives to help them keep going and growing. We can thank God for these children and look at them with the eyes of love even if they shrug our hand off their shoulder or seem unable to confide in us. Instead of reacting to them out of hurt, we can choose to be there for them, maybe silent, maybe with a hug, a kiss, a holding them on their feet. Sometimes, as Ann found out, we can overcome our anger at them, and instead listen to their anger and hurt, let them cry in our arms. They are always our gifts, our miracles, made in God's Image.
Above all we can remember that God is our Father and our children's Father. God our Father sent His Son to be with us, Emmanuel, "God With Us." In spite of our anger at God, our turning away, God still chose to come to us to live with us, in the flesh. To be with us, in spite of his eventual death at our hands. God's love for us absorbed our anger, our sin, and gave us the gift of new eternal life in Him. Pope Francis tells us,
"“When the man and his wife made the mistake and distanced themselves from God, God did not leave them alone. There was so much love, so much love that He began to walk with humanity. He began to walk with His people, until the fullness of time arrived, and He gave the greatest sign of His love, His Son.
"And His Son, where did He send Him? To a palace? To a city, to start a business? He sent Him to a family! God came into the world in a family. And he was able to do this because this family was a family that had its heart open to love, that had the doors open to love.”
God never, ever stops looking at each of us with the eyes of perfect love and understanding. As long as we pray, as long as we continue to look at each of our children as God's miraculous gifts to us, as long as, in spite of anger or hurt, we continue to see them with hearts thankful for their existence, God stays with us. God stays with our families to inspire us with love, forgiveness, peace, joy, and healing.