{"id":103,"date":"2022-11-04T07:53:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T07:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/?p=103"},"modified":"2022-11-04T07:53:30","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T07:53:30","slug":"perseverance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/04\/perseverance\/","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance\u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This week\u2019s reflection starts long before the classroom. \u00a0I woke up Sunday morning and started my morning meditation.<\/p>\n

When it was time to wake up my children, I called to them through the door to their room so I wouldn\u2019t have to open it and disturb the blanket fort they were sleeping under, it\u2019s corner wedged between the door and frame. \u00a0I started to get dressed and think about breakfast when I heard my children talking and then yelling and then screaming at each other. \u00a0I called through the door again hoping my voice would disrupt their anger and retorts, but it didn\u2019t. \u00a0In fact, I could hear that the argument had turned physical and they were hurting each other. \u00a0It was time to come in, fort or no.<\/p>\n

These moments prove to me some of the most difficult parenting situations I encounter. \u00a0I want to protect both of my children from being hurt physically or emotionally. \u00a0I want the yelling and fighting to stop. \u00a0I want to bring calm to the situation, but their anger tends to fuel my anger, especially when they are more intent on continuing their argument than in listening to me. \u00a0I found myself getting louder and louder and more frustrated and soon we were all yelling and unkind to one another. \u00a0Embarrassingly, the melee ended by me tearing down the blanket fort and separating the children.<\/p>\n

As I prepared breakfast and took some time to calm down, I marveled at how fast that situation had gotten out of control and how disappointed I was in myself. \u00a0I not only didn\u2019t manage to bring calm to the situation, I added to it. \u00a0That is not the kind of parent I want to be. \u00a0Parenting is a spiritual practice for me and it truly breaks my heart when I fall short.<\/p>\n

I first decided I needed to apologize to my son, who had built the fort. \u00a0I told him that I wished I hadn\u2019t taken it down and I would help put it back together. \u00a0I apologized to my daughter for yelling. \u00a0We ate breakfast. \u00a0And then I built the fort myself, fixing the blankets higher than they had been which was a welcome improvement according to the kids.<\/p>\n

And then we went to church. \u00a0It was story Sunday so we all went to the Sanctuary together and sat down. \u00a0Even though I sat between them, they started to poke and pick at each other disturbing those around us. \u00a0I stood up for the first hymn and noticed they were drawing a line on the pew delineating whose side was whose. \u00a0And then they started drawing a line up my back. \u00a0This was a sad moment for me. \u00a0I don\u2019t want my children to feel scarce with my love and attention so that they need to claim their part of me. \u00a0I want all of me to be for both of them. \u00a0Listening to Jessica\u2019s sermon asking us to please have mercy on ourselves for our moments of failure was just the balm I needed.<\/p>\n

Our lesson in class was about the Persevering Ant who goes on a pilgrimage to find what is biggest and most powerful, ending up in conversation with God who was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. \u00a0One child said that the piece of fabric under the story was the most important part because it held all the other parts. \u00a0All the pieces were included. \u00a0And it made me think about one of the greatest powers of Love, to hold all things, even the things that we sometimes find difficult or painful. \u00a0To have mercy on myself means that the power of love can draw me back to my center and give me the strength to apologize. \u00a0It gives me the desire to wonder why I behaved the way I did this time and what I might do differently next time. \u00a0It gives me the assurance that there is more than this; \u00a0more than my painful learning as a parent, more than the smaller forces of fear and tiredness and hurt. \u00a0There are more chances, more relationship, more love and more mercy than I can exhaust by my mishaps and missteps. \u00a0This is truly good news and worth practicing again and again and again. \u00a0What does the power of love call you to? \u00a0Where do you need to have mercy on yourself?<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<\/article>\n

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 <\/p>\n<\/header>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s reflection starts long before the classroom. \u00a0I woke up Sunday morning and started my morning meditation.<\/p>\n

When it was time to wake up my children, I called to them through the door to their room so I wouldn\u2019t have to open it and disturb the blanket fort they were sleeping under, it\u2019s corner wedged between the door and frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-category"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}