Life is kind of a blur right now. My oldest son graduates from high school tomorrow night. I cannot even begin to go into the emotions that is creating right now. Perhaps in a few days. But one thing I have to say is I AM NOT THAT OLD.
Our best friends next door are the same age and their oldest is eight. Other friends my age have oldest children who are four . . . two . . . one is getting ready to have another baby. For crying out loud, why does it seem that we are so much older than people the exact same age?
Well, I can tell you this. I've got a lot of experience under my belt that others my age do not. Some good, some bad - but it's all there creating emotions and guiding my reactions, making me do and think and feel things that people on the outside cannot even begin to understand. You can't until you've been through it.
For instance, I so appreciate the young staff we have at our church working with our junior and senior high. The boys love them and so do I. They bring a charisma to the table that cannot be matched, and their enthusiasm for the Lord speaks to our boys like nothing else could. At the same time, they cannot possibly fathom the weariness we parents are feeling at times; the frustrations, the fear, the panic that they are approaching adulthood faster than we can keep up with and being exposed to things that we cannot undo. That is a point-of-view that can only be understood in the thick of parenting a teen or pre-teen. You can certainly imagine it, but you can't know it.
Add to these things raising three boys with three differently diagnosed neurological issues, and then you really narrow the field of those who can comprehend what goes into why you act and react the way you do to seemingly small things. Unless you have shadowed me and all of my experiences over the last 18 years, there really is no way you can fathom what it's been like. And it really would take day in and day out experience to get it.
What I do appreciate and am incredibly grateful for are those who do not tell me they understand or that I am wrong for feeling what I do, but do remind me of the most important things that should not be falling off of my radar at all: that I have three awesome, wonderful boys who were given to me for a reason. That I was chosen to raise them and God knew what he was doing when he did that - even when I feel like I have no idea what I am doing after all these parenting years!
No - in my own case, experience does not equal expertise. Not by a long shot. It does mean I know more and have been through more - and explains the look on my face most of the time.
So one almost down and two to go. And what I mean by that is that I've gotten one to adulthood with all of his limbs still attached and no money spent on bail.
And the most important thing? He knows Jesus and his heart is the Lord's. How could I possibly ask for more?
