I don’t know how I wound up in a world like this. I’m tired of waking up to a hashtag with a name I shouldn’t know. The call to action is fierce, and my own silence is cruel. We get to be too lucky, and I don’t know how much I like that.
Where I feel called to lead strong and encourage well, I also feel convicted to accept what is. When you’re young enough to hear the terms, “I can’t imagine what this world will be like for our children,” you shrug it off and ignore it. It’s easy, when you’re young. Time is a friend, outside circumstances cannot harm us when we’re protected by the adults who love us. But I’m hearing those words come out of my own mouth often. Weekly. I am avoiding the news because my heart can’t possible handle this heartache. I don’t want to be desensitized to murder. I don’t want my boys to be found in a home where it can be overlooked.
Some days, like this day, I want to crush my phone and all that the Internet has given me. I ache for a time where there is peace and comfort and true satisfaction, but I know that’s just the longing for heaven within me. This world isn’t my home, and I want to be sure I remember it. Wear it. Believe it. It makes it more palpable to be here where hate and murder are far too common.
It’s in my sons’ nature to fight, wrestle, and hit. Every single day we have encounters with time out and discipline because they don’t know how to always be kind. I’ve got a job to teach them, so we revisit the idea of kindness day in and day out. The hashtags on my twitter feed prompt me so.
Fact is, I know that they will never be perfect. They’ll mess up, too, and eventually they will have to deal with it on their own. Right now, the amount of discipline needed to keep them partially in line seems unending. But I remember a mother who lost her son today, even women who don’t even get lucky enough to have a son or daughter at all, and I close my mouth and stifle the thought of the “burden” these boys are to me. What a generous blessing it is to help the next generation so directly.
The lump in my throat seizes, thinking of the world these boys will inherit. I don’t want to admit it, but I don’t envy them. They’ll need to be stronger than me. Bolder in some ways. Able to love better in ways I struggle. I can’t teach them all things, and at that, the weight on my chest lifts some, and I breathe in relief. God equips, He enables, He does all the work.
I woke up today with all my boys in my lap, at my feet, anticipating a bowl of cereal. People are murdered every day. And in these days, we are more aware of a race problem, everyone’s opinion about it, the headlines, the demands for justice, the pleas for the innocent. I woke up and wanted to weep at my children’s feet because I frankly don’t want this for them. I don’t want them to encounter the havoc and chaos that has arrived. But it’s too late for me to mourn; the reality is this, and I have sons to equip.
I bow my head to pray and lift it in reverence. I know that my responsibility is to be present, and to teach these boys to be men who aren’t raging for the world to hear them. I have a King to serve, and I have a little audience at my feet, waiting for cereal, hoping to sit with me in their pjs. They don’t know what this world is like just yet. And when they find out, I hope they seize their chest in righteous anger and leave it to God to rage. That they shed their opinion and seize the truth of His Word and spread love like wildfire. I hope and pray that they can see men and women through the lenses of a Father who loves us all, immeasurabley.
Their inheritance will be heavy, but their King will be stronger.
JANELLE DELAGRANGE 