My twins told me about the movie
Freaky Friday, unaware that I had watched it when I was twelve. The plot, if you missed it, is that a mom and her daughter switch bodies and duties for a day, and become significantly more appreciative of the other person's challenges. My mind wandered to the woman I visited this week, who told me
that she and her friend would eagerly swap places. Not husbands, mind you, but the parenting scenario. She feels she was born to be a stay at home mom, yet because of her circumstances has no choice but to juggle a few part time jobs. While we talked she kept a running conversation with her son about Lego fortresses, shields made of pan lids, swords tucked into his belt and the likelihood of needing them to protect against tanks. Her friend, who is a stay at home mom to a crowd of small
children, longs to go back to work. Motherhood feels like drudgery to her, and she itches to reemerge in the world of adults with no peanut butter on her collar.
Feeling like we are in the wrong place is a common, if not universal tendency. There were times I was certain God had matched me up with the wrong storyline and if I could only get His attention we could pull a Freaky Friday and all would be well. From my vantage point on the ground I had good advice for how I would
best thrive.
But perhaps my premise was wrong. I wanted to slip myself into a routine where I would succeed without strife, sail without a storm, run without a limp. Instead, God plunked me into a life peppered with mental illness, job uncertainty, health issues and a waffling economy. Yet only fifty some years into the game I feel grateful for some of those storms. When we lived on ten grand a year, I practiced frugality not as a pastime but as a means of
survival. The years of not knowing if my mother was in her right mind added to the depth of my compassion for invisible pain. Having a son with autism forces me to reevaluate what defines a meaningful day.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. As the heavens are above the earth so my ways are above yours.
Isaiah
55
