Spectacle

This past Wednesday night I at last made it to my church for dinner, fellowship, and parenting class again. Herding 9 year old who was pestering almost 4 year old to the stairs, covered in bags and sweaters and carrying my toddler, I heard my cheery little ring tone croaking from somewhere inside my purse. Not now, I told it silently and continued herding kids down the stairs to dinner.


  On my way back up the stairs, some half hour and lots of calories consumed later, I mentioned to a kind friend who voluntarily helped bear some of my burden, that being a single parent feels like a social handicap. You're always seen as different, as making a scene, as a spectacle, or so my perception tells me. People stare and wonder and theorize and some criticize, and some sympathize. The really nice ones offer aid to an overburdened and clearly exhausted parent trying to grow 7 arms and 20 eyes and perhaps an extra brain to control them. Forget saving Metropolis - if I had laser vision, the ability to freeze things with my breath, super strength, invincibility and the power of flight, I'd see to the other side of the house to be sure my kids were ok while I fixed supper, instantly cool hot soup and freeze water bottles, bring all my bags, groceries and toddler to the house in one trip, and save a lot of money on fuel! And then I suppose people would stare even more. :) I'm still trying to learn the lesson of not caring what they think.

  Funny thing is, I've bemoaned all my life that I fit nowhere and remain an outsider, but that's the way a messenger of God is supposed to feel. This is just my newest reason for feeling different.

  The message on video Wed. night was a parenting class that spoke well to me of helping my kids see themselves in a godly light. Maybe I need to learn that lesson first.

Blessings,
V