Tuesday, November 3, 2015

The truth about Santa

Last weekend, my mama heart took quite the hit. It was a typical family day at the pumpkin farm when my oldest leaned toward me and asked me the dreaded santa question. "Mom, I've been wondering. Is Santa real or is that just you buying the stuff and saying that it is from him?" My response was to take a deep breath and reply that that topic was not appropriate for the pumpkin farm but I would gladly talk to him later about it. He found me later that evening and I locked us both in the laundry room, turned the dryer on and gave him the truth. I told him that I was going to be completely honest with him. I explained that Jesus and everything to do with him, the cross, heaven, all of that was 100% truth but that Santa was the greatest lie ever told. It broke my heart and when he cried two crocodile tears I wondered for a moment if I had made the right decision, but then he smiled and said that he couldn't believe he was right. Within minutes he took out the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, and the Elf on the Shelf lost his battle the following morning.

Why did I do it? Trust me when I say that I hated losing that part of his childhood but recently I have been praying that as my boys grow they will choose to keep me in their circles. I want them to value our relationship later as much as they do now. I want to be more than their maid, cook, and fever fixer. I want to be a safe place to turn. I have been asking God to show me how to survive these years where they want to talk about video games and the world series, minecraft and pokemon, so that when they are ready to open up about the important stuff, I am still here and that I will be ready. I knew the moment that he opened his mouth with the Santa question that this was about a lot more than the man from the North Pole. When I prayed about it as we drove home from the pumpkin farm, I realized that it was about being honest and real and proving to my little men that I am worthy of valuable conversation. I had the opportunity to earn his trust.

I have been reflecting recently that kids are like little empty vessels. They are given to us for a time and we get to fill them up in a way.  As parents we get to choose where we direct and allow their attention and likes to land. Ryan and I have tried desperately to fill our boys with the things that we have deemed valuable like compassion, kindness, gratitude, baseball, and, of course, faith.  We do family time.We worship together and we dance to what does the fox say. We mess up ALOT but we try to fill them with good things more often than not. We have tried to love them and discipline them and be examples for them but we are getting to that place in their lives where we will have to let them go a bit. I can only control so much, and although I can do my best on my side of thier lives, I can't control whatever the future may hold for them. I can be sure there will be good times and I can also be sure of difficult times. They will be reasons to praise and reasons to pray. They will have to choices to make and they will sometimes they will feel like they have no choice at all. Who they are and what they believe will be tested and shaken. I just hope that when their vessels are shaken, the good and right is what spills out.

We have lived our lives in front of our kids. They have seen us disagree, hurt, apologize, fail, weep, laugh, love, and rejoice. We have been honest about our brokenness and the brokenness of the world that we live in. We have lived our faith daily, while still trying to shield them from the harshness of it all. Sometimes we have done this well and lots of times, we have not. When I think back on the last 10 years with my boys, I just hope that they will remember the good and will have learned from the bad. I can only hope that we have taught them to love Jesus and love others, to say sorry, to be honest even if it is not cool, to be real, to worship, to cry, and to laugh, and that we will love them through all of it. I hope that I have earned a spot in the circle. I hope they will keep me close. Yes, I may have lied about Santa when they were little but I hope that they will trust in the TRUTH that will always be bigger than whatever life brings them and that they will walk in that TRUTH everyday . I want them to know that life will be hard but that hard can still be good and to never lose heart. I want them to walk the path that God has for them and not be afraid of the road that lies ahead and maybe, every now again, they will let me hold their hands and go along with them.