On “heavy!”
We live in Texas and we are four days into a life halting ice storm. If you are from anywhere in the northern part of our country, we know you are laughing at us, and we don’t care. They say everything is bigger in Texas, but the ice storms actually aren’t. Our responses to the ice storms, however, absolutely are.
Anyways, being as we haven’t left the house in four days, we have been making sure to do the at home workouts our gym is programming, you know to counteract to be sudden unexplainable baking interest I have taken up. Apparently all it takes is four days of lock down for me to connect with the innate feminine desire to cook. That was a joke, by the way.
Anyways (again), let’s just say Ellie has been carrying the team as far as enthusiasm for the at home workouts go. Not only has she joined us in doing burpees and dumbbell snatches, but she has so selflessly offered herself up as an added almost 22 lb. weight to most of the movements each day. Who needs equipment when you can do push-ups with a tiny human on your back? No need for a dumbbell, just squat with a monkey wrapped around your body. The movements don’t need to be complex, because dodging a toddler is complicated enough! It’s been fun, but there’s no denying that Ellie is in the “all in on whatever we are doing” phase of toddlerhood.
When I’m in the right frame of mind - patient and remembering that raising a tiny human being is one of the most important things I can do - I love Ellie’s enthusiasm to “hep Mama!” (help). But when I’m unfocused or in a hurry or stressed, I have to be honest when I say I find it frustrating. Everything takes at least three times as long when Ellie is participating. When I recognize that these are the moments where she learns and grows and hopefully comes to love doing important life tasks, I embrace the chaos. But when I just want to get it done and move on, I often brush her aside and try to distract her with some toy, activity to do, or - here’s the ultimate Mom guilt move - a show.
Ellie is also in a phase where she constantly needs help. One of my favorite things she does is yell, “HEAVY!!!!” when she can’t do something. Sometimes she uses it in the right context, like when she is trying to move something that is in fact heavy. But my sweet baby also uses it as a call for help for anything she can’t do, like peeling a sticker off a sticker sheet. It’s adorable and funny and of course I help her no matter what the problem.
This afternoon I was thinking about God as our Father. How often do we try to butt into things He is doing when He never asked for help? Do we try to go “all in” on things He never intended for us to go “all in” on? And how often do we yell, “HEAVY!!!” about a situation as a cry for help? I wonder if I cry, “give me more finances!” when what I really need is more discipline. I ask, “take this situation away!” instead of asking for the patience to endure. I ask Him to, “change this person” rather than, “give me more compassion for them.” I call out the wrong thing and my Father looks down on me with love and adoration, and says, “oh honey, that’s not quite what the problem is, but you’re cute and I love you, so I’m going to help you anyways.” And I don’t mean any of that in a belittling sense. I mean that in the way that I look at my Ellie girl and love her all the more for it.
He is a good Father. He loves us so much that I wonder if He finds even our misguided requests endearing, just as I find Ellie’s misinterpretation of the word “heavy” to be so. Because even if we are crying out for the wrong thing, He loves that we are at least crying out to Him. He hears us. And He knows better than we do what we really need. I’m actually thankful that He knows better than I do. Just as I answer Ellie’s cry for help in the appropriate way, He responds to our calls in the way we actually need Him to.
Something I learned in sorting through the mess of my birth and postpartum experience is that sometimes He doesn’t give me what I want, but instead, He gives me what I need. While I wanted a seamless natural birth, thriving breastfeeding experience, and smooth path to reclaiming my fitness, what I really needed was to be humbled and the error of where I was placing my identity to be exposed. Of course the experience was painful and hard and I hated it. But after a lot of counseling and healing, I can see how if He had simply given me what I wanted, I never would have experienced the life change I’ve experienced over the past year since starting counseling. My postpartum depression is what drove me to seeking out help, but it was really just the door to Him bringing much deeper freedom and healing in my life. I now thank God for allowing me to hit rock bottom, because it was there that He got my attention and begin the work of rewiring my heart and mind to be more like Him.
He is a good Father. He loves us enough to answer our call for help. Sometimes we cry, “HEAVY!” and His response is something else. But we can trust that His response is the best response. Because just as I know more than Ellie does, He knows infinitely more than we do. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” I find peace in the fact that my future is not dependent on my own inadequate abilities and plans, but in the hands of a loving Father who is both omniscient and omnipotent - all knowing AND all powerful.
He’s a good Father. He sees and He knows and He cares and He responds. I’ve found my prayers shifting lately - from asking for specific things to asking for His will to be done. Because I know that His will is always better than mine, and He knows what is best when I do not. I know I can trust Him because He has proven Himself to be faithful in my life, over and over and over again - as if He needed to prove anything to me.
I share all of this because I hope to encourage you, whoever you are, to put your trust in your loving Father. He sees you and He knows you and He cares for you and He responds to you. Whether it’s your first time to place your trust in Him, or your thousandth, He is always faithful to respond when we call to Him. Even if you cry, “Heavy!!!” and what you really need is something else. His answer might not look how you want or expect it to, but you can trust that it is the best response. Because He is a good Father.
