The "I" in Believe

The thing about faith is it's completely and utterly individual.  It is something that is our own to cultivate and call on when we feel necessary.  No one can tell you to have faith.  No one can make you have faith.  It's something you decide for yourself and keep reinforcing on a daily basis.  Faith is like that emergency candy you have in your purse "just in case".  You know what I'm talking about.  It's there when we need it most yet also there when we want it.  It can be used as a life raft in tough situations but it can also be called upon when times are good and we just want a treat; something good to feed the soul.  Faith is like our children's birth stories; our own unique story that only us mothers can tell.

What I love about faith is that I can't be wrong.  My opinions and beliefs about God, his prophets, the afterlife, holy texts, and heaven cannot be proven.  They cannot be argued against-mainly because I don't feel a need to argue for them.  We have no scientific idea as to what happens to our souls after death.  We can only believe they go to heaven or hell or are reborn in some other way.  How do we know for sure?  We don't.  The beauty of faith is the mystery it solves in our own hearts and minds.

Smith Wigglesworth - “I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe.”

What do you want?!

  Jensen and I were tooling around Wal-Mart this morning during our weekly grocery shopping trip when I noticed a young boy (maybe 2-3 years old) getting whiny near the check-out lanes.  My heart went out to the exasperated, young mother trying to calmly pacify him.  Eventually, the whining escalated and the mother came unglued.
  "Just tell me what you want!  I don't know what you want!" she announced to her son as she threw her hands dramatically in the air.
  I looked down at Jensen who looked up at me, quizzically.  I promise not to talk to you like that I said to her in my head and smiled.  She unknowingly smiled back and continued to play with the bag of cat food I put in the cart.  We continued our way through the store and finished up our trip.
  Fast forward not 10 minutes later.  I'm in the car driving back home and Jensen is whining into oblivion.  I know she's not hungry.  I know she's not in pain (at least I'm pretty sure).  I know she's not bored (have you seen the eclectic array of toys attached conveniently to her carseat?!).  Although I don't say it out loud, the phrase WHAT DO YOU WANT is being screamed in my head at a volume that surely could be heard outside myself.  And at that point I know I've come unglued.
  After a few deep breaths, I ask myself WHY?  Why does her crying and whining make me so stressed out.  Is it a maternal thing?  Is it a natural instinct?  If it didn't bother me would that be a bad sign?  I think my stress comes from not KNOWING what she wants.  Not KNOWING what I can do to help her.  She's trying to communicate the only way she knows how and I am at a loss for how to decode it.
  "Sometimes babies just cry for no reason," a mom recently told me.  How is that supposed to help me?  I mean, I don't cry for no-wait, yes, sometimes I do.  Okay, point taken.
  Since she's not going to be able to talk, let alone communicate her emotions to me for at least a couple years, I better start A) learning to handle this frustration better, and/or B) learning to decode her communication better.  I don't know which option seems easier.  Because, of course, I want the easiest path.
  So, I get the girl home and tuck her in her crib and after about 15 minutes of dilly dallying she conks out for a nice morning nap.  Okay, I say to myself, made it through another morning.  Now on to the afternoon.  I take her morning nap time to get some chores done and read a little bit of a book.  I can feel the stress de-escalate and calm return.  Whew, a momentary unglued crisis averted.
  I learned today that I should never, ever judge any parenting style.  I should also never judge any child.  Who the heck knows what my kid is going to do to embarrass the bejesus out of me one day.  I also learned that the phrase, "How can I help you?" is certainly much more agreeable than "What the h$#* do you want?!".
  Lord have mercy.