When life hits you with a ton of bricks it can take the wind out of you. For sure, it’s going to exhaust you. By the time it’s all said and done you are going to be wiped. When you don’t think you can do anymore sometimes something miraculous happens. Sometimes you get a second wind. Sometimes something (or someone) eases the burden for a minute and that gives you enough time to muster yourself and stand up and take life and the bricks it hurls with renewed vigor.
I come from a long line of strong women. I’m sure I do. My mother was strong. She endured hardships that would have taken out a lesser woman. Her mother was much more strong than Mom ever thought about being. I’m not sure that is true but I do know that my grandmother raised two strong women, by herself, in an era that didn’t tolerate that. You didn’t want to mess with Mama. She would have laid you flat. Even though my dad’s mother was the typical grandma, she was strong in ways we never recognized as strength. But in hindsight I’d say she had that strong backbone that was needed to get up and face every day in a life of uncertainty. Now, as far as the women before them, I don’t know. I was not privileged to know my great-grandmothers. I did know the sisters of my grandmothers though and they gave a new definition to strong women.
It has been my mission in life to raise strong children. And I think I have. Don’t get me wrong, I am an overly protective mother and will take you out if you even consider looking cross-eyed at one of my precious darlings. They have been taught independence, assertiveness, ambition, compassion, honor, joy, passion, humor, selflessness, faith and gratitude. Hopefully, they have learned by example and made these their own. Hopefully they will take these and pass them onto the next generation, and the next.
I have done what I could, but I did not promise them that I would do it for them. I have made two promises to them in my life. I promised them that I would raise them in the Catholic Church. I did that on the day that I baptized them. I promised them that they would get a good education. I didn’t promise that I would pay for it. But I did promise that I would do what I could to get them the education that they would need to make the kind of life that they chose. Unfortunately they have student loans, something that I hope one day to eradicate from their lives. But I made up my mind that there would come a day that I would consider them “grown” and at that point in time it was up to them to make their life their own. Don’t worry, I was always in the wings, ready to pounce if need be, but I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t raise them the way they needed to be raised by the time they were 18 then I wouldn’t have them raised by the time they were 40.
I ache for them, at times. I wish I could come in and rescue them most of the time. But I have to resist because they have to learn to do it on their own, and because I have my own battles to fight. But at times, I just have to barricade myself in my bedroom or in my bathroom and just cry for them. They don’t need to know I do that, I don’t do that for them, I do that entirely for me.
Life does beat them up, at times. I remember Mother Teresa always said “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.” And I do believe that God only gives you what you can handle. I have always felt that God would give you the strength to go forward. And I know that there are times that I have felt, and my children have felt, that they didn’t have an ounce of strength left to fight a particular fight.
I recently discovered a little slice of scripture from the Book of Judges, that says, “Go with the strength you have”. That really hit home for me. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of strength left. Sometimes you only have enough strength to raise your head up or to stand up. Nothing more. So, this tells you, that at that time, that is all you need.
That is new. That is unexpected. But maybe, just maybe that little bit of strength is all you have left, and all that is needed. I like that. In fact, I might call that a game changer. Maybe all you need sometimes, is the strength to move just a little to avoid that last brick that is heading your way.