Discipline

Today we read from Hebrews 12 in church.  While the verses I'm about to share weren't part of our reading, they jumped off the page at me and hit me right between the eyes.

Hebrews 12:5-11

" 'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.'

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.  For what son is not disciplined by his father?  If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.  Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!  Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

As I've tried to make sense of this journey with my mother, I've gone through several phases.  You could call these the Phases of Grief, but I also think they apply when we are being disciplined. The classic five stages of grief are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.  While we'd all like to jump ahead to acceptance, failure to spend a little time in each phase will likely result in our not completely coming to acceptance with a situation but instead hanging on to it for many years and experiencing the mal-effects of it rearing its ugly head over and over again. When I think of the phases I went through when being disciplined as a child, I can see how these stages of grief can be applied to discipline as well.

When my mother's medical emergency first occurred, I was scared, fearful that she might die - sort of like when we are first called out on something.  However, during this time, I can say I truly felt the presence of God when I sat with her day after day in the ICU as she hallucinated and thrashed in her hospital bed.  More times than I can mention, I had instances where I felt God was clearly saying "I am with you".  Now this might not sound like classic "Denial" to you, but I was denying other feelings and just focusing on the emergency at hand at that point.  The shock of her medical condition ruled all of my thoughts and feelings for days, not allowing me to really process what this would mean to my life on a grander scale.  Accepting the situation and how it would affect my life for many months to come was not something I thought about until I moved out of the denial phase.  In the same way, when we are first made aware of a discipline issue, the shock of being called on the carpet consumes us until we accept that we have been scolded and move forward with how we need to change.

As things progressed, I became angry.  I was upset that she wasn't taking better care of herself.  I was upset that the consequences of her irresponsibility were keeping me away from my husband and children.  I resented that this was basically taking over my life...that everyday was consumed with caring for her when I had other people to care for.  Sometimes when we are being disciplined we become anrgy at the one who is disciplining us or the one who caused us (we think) to have to be discplined.  Whatever we call it, we want to blame someone for the way we feel and so we search for the closest person available.

As her medical issues continued for weeks, I began to let my mind get the best of me.  The "if onlys" crept in.  "If only I'd asked her more about taking her medicine.  If only I'd forced her to tell me what her blood sugar was every day.  If only I'd insisted that she see a primary care physician more often".  This is classic bargaining, coupled with a little guilt.  We try to return things to the way they were before and make it better.  We desire to go back in time and fix things so this couldn't have happened.  This is just our minds trying to sort things out.  When I was disciplined as a child, I remember beating myself up for getting caught or promising to never do something ever again.

And then after days and weeks and months of this journey, I became worn out.  My brain, which had been on overdrive for months, just got burnt out.  Operating at that level of stress over a prolonged period of time isn't healthy.  I lost my appetite. I lost weight. I began to hear myself say the words out loud "What's the point?"  I said it a lot, actually.  I wondered "what the point" was of everything.  After spending months visiting my mother in a nursing home everyday and seeing people living lives where they simply existed, without family by their sides, for months on end, it started to get to me.  I would call this depression.  I started being ambivalent about life.  Even things that should have roused a spirit of joy in me weren't doing the trick.  I talked to my husband at length about my feelings.  He listened, as did close friends.  Sometimes, all you need is someone to listen and to reassure you and tell you that "yes, you're in a crummy place right now, but it's not going to last forever.  You'll move through it, eventually".  When we get disciplined, it can get us down.  In the case of discipline, as well as going through a medical crisis like my mother's, experiencing some level of depression is a normal and appropriate response.  The hardest part is being willing to continue to trudge through it when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally, today, I can say that I've come to acceptance.  I'm beginning to see my way out of this, and I definitely experience more good days than bad days.  It's not over by a long stretch, but we're getting somewhere.  My mother had her final surgery four weeks ago and is healing nicely.  Sure, there have been some bumps along with way but nothing too extreme.  I have come to accept several things about me and about her.  Most importantly I've come to accept this situation as a part of my life.  It's not going anywhere so I need to work within these new parameters God has set for me.  The bright spot at the end of discipline is when we accept what we've been told and resolve to make it part of us.

But you may ask, "What was God disciplining you about through all of this?"  For a long time, I've made a practice of admitting that I "stink at compassion." This is the result of being told this (by guess who? :-) and by feeling completely useless in different situations that required compassion - like I had nothing to give, nothing to offer. Somehow, I thought by admitting this shortcoming out loud, I was absolving myself of having to do anything about it.  Wrong.  For the past 8 months, God has forced me into a situation where I have been tasked with showing compassion everyday. I've been thrown into the deep end of the pool of compassion and told to swim.  He's put me in a place where I've been at war with myself in my own head, sometimes for hours, about what to do or what to say.  He's shown me the ridiculousness of my need to control things.  He's revealed to me how much more I can gain from an experience by trying to find the good in it rather than trying to point out everything that needs improving.

Even during the times when I was so frustrated with my mother that I could spit nails, God put other people in front of me who needed compassion and showed me what I could be doing.  He showed me what compassion looks like in the ways that people reached out to me during this time.  Now, when faced with a situation in which someone needs compassion, I have a virtual encyclopedia worth of examples that I can draw from.  There are so many things that meant so much to me like when people would call and just ask me how I was or let me vent or offer to take the kids.  People made us meals, and told me they were praying for my mom and for us.  I truly appreciated the friends who tried to help me think about other things by continuing to include me in their birthday celebrations and girls nights out.  People sent me cards, gave me hugs and just told me they had been thinking about me.  Friends came and sat with me at the hospital during her many surgeries or picked up my children from school at a moment's notice when something went wrong with her care.  People allowed me to feel all the feelings I described above without judging me for it.  And then there were the friends who said, "I don't know how you're doing this, but you are.  You are so strong." and that was enough to buoy my state of mind for a little while.

So has this all been an exercise in discipline?  I believe so.  It's definitely been a growing experience.  It's most certainly equipped me to help other people who face similar situations in the future.  It wasn't lost on me when one of my friends commented, "You know we're all going to have to deal with our aging parents some day.  You're just doing it first."

I no longer feel run down by this.  I feel like a caterpillar emerging as a butterfly, like a flower that's just starting to bloom.  God had a purpose in this for me - to change me, to mold me, to grow me, and as Winter is coming to a close, and Spring is upon us, I can finally feel the gentle warmth of the sun on my face.