Today I left home with a prayer buzzing back and forth between my brain and my heart. I drove to my daughter's house. The prayer was to know how to best help my twelve-year-old grand daughter break through the thick ice of overwhelm. Her room is a disaster and she doesn't know where to start to clean it up, but she can't stand it the way it is. So much of this dear girl is a mirror of my past. She is massively creative, almost overburdened with creativity. She is riddled with a constant barrage of ideas, and crippled by ADHD and it's wicked need to constantly feed dopamine to the brain. Offering to help her sometimes becomes a slamming and locking of doors with sobbing on the other side. She is confusing to herself.
I empathize with her more than she could possibly know. I wish I could say I've completely outgrown the struggle... but, alas.
Praise the Lord, we were able to gently walk into the prospect of working together. I asked her to give me one assignment. Like... one item to pick up. She couldn't do that, so I asked if I might suggest something. When she said "yes" I said: "How bout I gather up all the yarn in the room?"
She is incredibly gifted with her hands. She can crochet anything, without patterns, and therefore there tends to be a spaghetti bowl of yarn on her bedroom floor. As I was untangling and winding yarn, I came upon two pieces of paper crumpled in tight balls beside the overflowing trash bin. I sat on her bed and opened the balls into pages of heartache. There, in her tidy handwriting, she flailed against herself. I have written the same at various places in my life. I gently folded the discarded paper and tucked them in my pocket, dumping the rest of the garbage in a large bag. The words on one are hers alone, and I won't share them. One day she will read them and weep for herself, for the harsh and unrealistic expectations she put on herself.
The other page had this: A self scourging, like she is her own whipping boy. It speaks, on some level, for just about everyone I know who is not narcissistic:
I imagine my girl in the wee hours of the night, unable to sleep, but also unable to make herself do anything useful. How is it that when we ache so deeply for those we love, the love expands? Empathy, I suppose, must be a portion of love that is necessary for us to be able to experience its fulness. Goodness, I love her!
I'm comforted, and hope she will be too, by the words of our Lord, who offered to make up for our flaws. It is He who condescended so that he could fully empathize with us.
It is He who who submitted to punishment he did not deserve.
He understands that we cannot possibly be perfect yet.
And it is He who offered to make up the difference when we fall short.
Yes, we should all be better.
He makes us enough.
