It had taken a long time to work up the nerve to ask. I’m not one who seeks help willingly. The phrase “fiercely independent” comes to mind. And then, of course, I don’t take advice from just anywhere. I’m seeking wisdom and it takes time to vet out who can provide that. But the last thing I expected once I’d settled my mind on the asking for help was to receive a “no” in response.
I didn’t grow up in church, but a whole lot of my core high school friend group in the 90s did and influenced me greatly. My faith became a real and vital part of my life in college and beyond. Early in our marriage, Shawn and I had served in youth ministry at our church and were able to get to know a handful of amazing students. You could just tell there was something different about these kids — that their faith in Christ wasn’t a show. Their attendance at church events wasn’t for social purposes. They didn’t come because their parents made them. Their knowledge of the truth in Scripture was deep, and thoughtful, and real. They hadn’t been fed the propaganda machine of Fire Insurance from the southern Bible Belt machine. They didn’t view God as a spiritual vending machine. They weren’t under the yoke of legalism or moralism. It wasn’t about checking off the Quiet Time box. Their faith was who they WERE, and not because their parents expected it. They were able to wrestle with the doubts and the contradictions. They were alive in Christ.
Once I had children of my own, I wanted to know how these parents had managed it. I had no model myself to go by. These families had raised children who had attended church all of their lives but despite that had actual, legitimate, authentic faith. I wanted to glean their wisdom on how to navigate these waters. I wanted to know the things they DID do and perhaps the things they purposely chose NOT to do. I wanted my children to depend on Christ with all they are and never wonder if their choice to believe was because they had to because of me.
There was a family I knew as acquaintances who fit this description. Titus 2 had haunted around the corners of my mind for months. In this letter, Paul urges the older women to help and guide the younger women. I felt God was urging me to seek out the presence of an older woman, a mentor, in my life to learn from, who was in the next stage of parenting. My kids were 1 and 2 at the time and frankly, I just wanted to do this parenting thing well. I wanted to avoid things that would harm them that we’d have to UNdo later on. So I set my pride aside and worked up the nerve. I messaged the acquaintance older mom and asked her if she could spend an evening with me, a coffee date, so I could pick her brain for ideas on how to raise my kids to love God truly and not superficially.
She phoned me in response. (As an aside, don’t do that to introverts. Seriously). Her manner was very curt. The message that I received through her word choices and tone were that while this wasn’t something she really wanted to do, she’d begrudgingly do it. Not that it was an honor to help a new and struggling mom. Not that she’d offer the wisdom and hope that she possibly could. Not affirmation for seeking guidance during a trying time. But just that she’d show up and answer any question I specifically had.
But then.
She let me know that evenings were out of the question. Evenings were reserved for her husband, and that was untouchable. She would not relent. She would meet me, but it would have to be in the daytime.
I explained that my children were little. It was all I could do to get through each day to make it to bedtime. My daughter was full fledged in what we now refer to as The Dark Days. Neither of my children napped. (And even these ten years later, I’m still bitter they dropped naps well before anyone else I knew.) I was in full on survival mode. It would not be possible for me to multitask this. I could not be mentally present to speak to her and absorb what she had to say, to even think to ask the questions I may have formed, if I were also having to make sure my children weren’t climbing the outside of the stair railings, putting their fingers in sockets, or eating bug carcasses from the corners. Going to her home and keeping them occupied would have been pointless. I couldn’t have listened to a word she said for the full time job of watching the two firecrackers in the throes of exploration and discovery.
This was the most difficult stage of parenting for me with my particular personality, being ON 24/7 without a break. What I desperately needed was two hours with another adult woman who could mentor me and show me Light and Hope. Living somewhere without family nearby, I didn’t have a daytime babysitter or someone my children would feel comfortable being left with. I had no emergency out. I needed our meeting on an evening when Shawn could keep the kids and I could get out for a bit, and be able to think clearly.
After a bit of back and forth, we hung up. She wasn’t going to budge. Evenings were her husband’s. Every single one of them. From then to eternity. A woman whose children were grown and out of the home, who was a stay at home wife to her husband, who went to church with me, refused to meet with me during the evening hours of one day. She could do the working hours, or not at all. I was in no hurry. I could meet tomorrow or in two months. But the evening was strictly forbidden. So I chose to meet not at all. We never met or talked about the conversation later. And I never asked anyone else for that guidance.
A decade or so has passed since that conversation seared into my memory.
I’ve thought about it so many times. Did I feel so rejected because I was prideful? Was it wrong to just walk away when I couldn’t figure out how to make it work on her terms? Was I being my own version of stubborn and resilient, balking when it couldn’t be done how I wanted it? Should I have made do with what she offered?
I’m still not fully sure. What do I know is that in a time when I felt I was at my weakest, stretched to breaking, and finally cried out for help, I felt met with rejection. The message I received was that “Your needs are not that important.” I’m not willing to bend in order to help out a fellow. I see that you’re struggling, but that’s on you. What you desire is of no consequence to me.
There is an equally toxic mentality that runs through our churches that insists that we must serve to the point of exhaustion, perhaps in places we are not particularly gifted or, perhaps even in places God has not called us to serve. People serve the Church with a capital C so much so that their own families and relationships wither and die. Some people even insert themselves into situations and scenarios without waiting for an invitation, feeling a compulsion that if they don’t, who else will. I wouldn’t want to contribute to someone doing this flip side of the coin either.
Time gives much perspective. Who knows what struggles this woman may have been enduring silently that I was unaware of, in my own suffering. Who knows what perfectly reasonable rationale she may have had for setting forth this hard boundary that she would not cross. Who knows if maybe she just had really poor on-the-phone social skills and had no idea how cold and rejecting she came across. Maybe I didn’t convey just how much I needed someone in that moment. And maybe in the end, this was the thing that was best for both of us. Maybe God protected me from false teaching.
But time and time again, those words of Titus 2 resound in my mind.
"Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind..."
I’m somewhere in the middle of this now. My children are more than halfway through their time in my care. I’m 41. Halfway (-ish???) through life. I realize now that the things of my youth that seemed so black and white, so definite, so clear couldn’t possibly be more muddy, more gray. I realize now that the more I have learned, the more I have yet to learn. There is often more than one right way to achieve an outcome. But I would exhort to all of you that no matter where you are in your stage of life, to someone, YOU are the older woman (or perhaps man).
I still don’t have the answer to how to raise your children to love God wholeheartedly. What I do know is that whatever I attempt to do through my own efforts, my own strivings, my own will is destined to fall hollow. The more I age, the more I come to the acceptance that whatever happens to anyone else is not for me to manipulate. Each morning it is up to me to choose either to lay down my connivings, my expectations, my weaving things to go my way, allowing the Holy Spirit to do God’s work inside of and through me, whatever that holy work may be, or to succumb to my own machinations. I may fail miserably at this today, but tomorrow I have a new chance to be the conduit of Light for whoever it is that God has placed in my path: my children, a younger woman, or an older woman. The key is not to rely on my own self and my own efforts, but to allow His.
[I actually wrote this Feb 24th, 2020. And something made me wait to share it. After years of this rattling around in my head, I finally put fingers to keyboard and wrote it all out. And then I couldn't post it. I don't know how to explain it. It's very unusual for me to not share something once I get it out of my head and into form. But this time, I thought I'd wait and see how I felt about it a few weeks later. And then the world shut down. And it sure didn't feel right sharing about this when we were faced with so much uncertainty. So I sat on it a bit longer. I'm hoping there's a reason for all of this and perhaps the person who needs to read it, will be the one to read it today.]