Here I sit. It’s now after 1am and I’m bloodied by yet another battle. A battle that drove my beloved from the room some time ago and has rendered the end of this day to be beyond repair. The zeal of one not quite yet a man pitted against the wisdom, experience and advice of a man and woman who have walked the path for many more years.
Over these past months, storms like this have been on the increase. But tonight, the battlefield was left riddled with critically wounded caricatures of the crumbling foundations on which a relationship forged over the past 17¾ years was made. Unfiltered words were waged on many fronts, launched against the most basic of beliefs that define our family…tirades expressed attempting to dismantle the reason and purpose of rules and expectations instituted for the good of all instead of the satisfaction of one. Discussions that always returned to the passionate denial of wrongdoing and blame that somehow always belongs to everyone else.
I’m not naïve. I know the time is rapidly approaching when the unfurling of his wings will make our home no longer big enough for the three of us. Episodes such as tonight will ascend to their fateful peak in a few short months and as a result, one less car will occupy the driveway and one less person will be joining us for dinner each night. In its place, the emotional dichotomy of one finally entering into what he just knows the world will be like will be juxtaposed by two others whose laments and petitions before the Almighty will reach a fevered pitch in his regard, armed with the knowledge and experience of just how deceptive the great, big world can be and the unsuspected damage and destruction aimlessly navigating it often imposes.
Truth is, this tearing away from the nest is to be expected and even pursued as the way parent/child relationships have been fashioned by God. But on nights like tonight, all this stop on the journey did was render all those involved weary and battle-scarred if even only for the night. Or, so it seems…
Tomorrow is a new day though. Our love for him is damaged, but unshaken and I truly believe his view of us is very much the same. He is a good, but imperfect kid…we are good, but imperfect parents and we’re all just trying to figure this out at the same time, but not always together.
As my mind runs out of words, I have to say that I’m thankful the grace of God doesn’t lessen or cease when times get tough and messy…I’m sure there will be other nights like this where it is all we will have left to hold onto. Pray for us? 😊
Landon <><
-Photo by Richard Lee via Unsplash.com
