Grooves in the Grain

We’ve been having some struggles with Tessa.
As in she’s having some struggles,
and we are trying to let her know that we aren’t coming against her, but are truly struggling WITH her.
Alongside her.
We are in it as one.

Many of our night lately have ended with draining battles.
Tear stained pillows. Frustrated sighs.
Many bed time kisses have felt hard to give, and I can feel they’ve been hard to take as well.
Her spirit has been at war.
She’s listening to lies inside her own head saying she’s not good enough.

Her hurting heart shows up regularly dressed as anger.

Tonight after yet another issue -
After she’d stormed up the stairs and then back down again.
After she’d yelled her “No”s and “It’s not fairs” and after I fantasized about just running away from it all, I found my own self near tears, sitting on the edge of her bed.

At first we did the thing.
The thing where we both talk over each other.
The thing where she acts extra kid
and I act extra Mom.

She was angry at my disciplines and flat out told me so.
Stunned at her accusations of injustice,
and not even knowing what to say anymore,
I said the only thing I could under my breath.
“God, please help me here.”
And that was exactly when the visual came.
And I knew just what it meant.

In my mind I saw a plank of wood,
and in the middle was worn a deep groove.
Then I saw a weathered pair of hands start sanding that groove away.

I was quiet long enough that she had quieted, too.

“Tessa, do you know what happens to things when something wears at the same place for a long time?”
She shook her head no.
“When you take an object, like a piece of wood, for example, and you wear at it over and over in the same place for a long time,
a groove begins to form in the wood.”

I used my hands to mimic the wearing.

“And if you keep wearing just like that,
before long a deep groove will appear.
A path gets made for even more wearing.

Our life is like that wood.

The things that we allow ourselves to do,
or say, or think - they wear a path in us.
At first with no real change to see,
but before long if we keep doing those same things or thinking that same way,
we wear a path into our lives of that very behavior that becomes like a track that is so deep within our grains it’s hard to not travel within that same old trench.
As your mother,
beyond my job to make you happy, or give you what you want,
is my job to shape you into what you were meant to become.
My job is to watch how and where you’re making your grooves,
and if one of those grooves is off track for what you’re meant to become,
my job is to redirect the route you are wearing so you don’t wear a trench so deep you can’t climb out.
My job is to help keep your surface as smooth as I can.
Free of deep pits that weaken your strength.
My job is to help you see just what your life can become;
Because what starts out looking like just a plank if plain wood,
can become SO many beautiful things.

From the moment you were born I saw something different inside you.
And I couldn’t even explain it.
It’s like I knew your plank of wood was mean for more than blocks, or picture frames.
You were meant to become art.
You were meant to be a bridge.
You had something that I saw from that very first minute.
Something God gave to ONLY YOU.
Not to Paige or Chloe or to Alena.
Not to me.
Just you.
Every one of us is born with a purpose,
but a few of us were born with a big one,
and I’ve always seen that that is you.

I need you to know that because I see it and know what it is,
I will fight for it even when YOU won’t.
Even when you can’t.
I will sacrifice my own happiness and peace because of how important it is, and I will sit on the edge of a bed some nights and shape you.

Right now you are letting a lot of outside things cloud that treasure you carry.
Right now you are pretty deep in your trench.
Right now my rough hands feel like too firm of pressing,
but what you can’t know yet is that what Im pressing against you

is sandpaper

helping to smooth you out
and make what you see as just a rough plank right now into something so beautiful.
Something you can’t believe started out how it did.
Honey, do you understand what I’m saying?” I asked.
And she nodded. And the dam broke.
And I put down my sandpaper for the night and held her until she fell asleep smooth.