Laying my Isaac Down

Psalm 13:2, "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?"

It's an earthly saying, but it goes:  "You're only as happy as your least happy child." (Phillip Larkin).  And if you live by worldly standards, it's pretty true.  And some days it is true, regardless.  I can only speak to the momma side, but I can imagine the same is true on the dad side.  Your lives become very intertangled with your child's life.  For momma, maybe it's that blending of flesh from the beginning.  I use to hate being a girl.  I am a tomboy still today.  I don't really enjoy cooking...I do it and sometimes it even turns out okay, but baking is not my joy.  I Hate shopping (capital H intended).  There's way too much drama with girls, so I use to rather hang with the guys.  Then I became pregnant and realized how amazing being a woman is.  To be a part of creating life, to feel it grow and move inside of you is one of the most indescrible pleasures of life.  I also went on a hike one time with a bunch of ladies that were older than me (my own mother's age).  I didn't talk much, but listened a lot and fell in love with being a woman and hearing their common stories and the way they bonded and cherished and built each other up.  Okay, so the monthly periods are a MAJOR drag; but the good far outweighs the bad.  And I'm sure there are guys out there that don't enjoy being "mr. fix-it" either...so our worlds aren't so different.

The flip side:  this love that knows no bounds, also knows sorrow.  When your kids hurt, you hurt along with them...physically...your heart hurts.  Seeing them make their own adult bad choices in PAINful.  My biggest ache comes from knowing that at this point, today, my son will not see eternity, but spend his time after death in absolute aloneness...it's a physical hurt in my heart.  And I get why David sings, "How long....how long must I have this sorrow in my heart?"  

But, there's a daily choice I have to make.   A wise woman, having walked in my shoes, suggested reading Laying my Isaac Down  about Abraham's faith in God to provide and having to lay our own Isaac's down (it doesn't have to be a child, but that thing you are holding on to and maybe keeping control of instead of opening your hand and holding it loosely so God can have the control).  It's a hard story to read in the Bible, right up to the moment the lamb appears.  I imagine Abraham's heart walking up the mount, and his son's.  My two favorite words...BUT GOD.  I have to choose to say, "But God" everyday and choose happiness and trust...deep in my heart already knowing that every person has to work out their salvation and God has heard my cries (and that my son may very well have to hit his bottom before he looks up).  When my son comes to his faith, it will be his own (I said "when" not "if")

So, "how long?" must I have sorrow...well, only as long as I hold on to it and don't lay it down.