Learning
Around here, we are in the midst of driving lessons as our oldest works toward getting his license. It's been a humbling experience in many ways. While I thought I was a patient, calm person, I discovered upon climbing into the passenger seat next to my teenager that I am none of those things. In fact, I'm a bit of a control freak with a sharp tongue. It was a revelation.
Not that our son is a bad driver by any stretch. But he's a new one, making many of the mistakes that are common to anyone learning something new. The difference is, learning has always come easy for him. He catches on to things quickly and rarely struggles in school. He reads a wide variety of things and has a nearly photographic memory (like his father--ask me how fun it is to live with two of them...). So, the role of inexperienced rookie is a little new to him.
After a few lessons, I began to recognize what might be happening between us to cause sparks to fly. I expected him to come in with the posture of a student, ready to receive all my (a little superfluous) instructions. Because he's always been ahead of the curve, I believe he felt the pressure to already know everything, to get it perfectly from the start. And when neither of us found what we were expecting, well, things got a little heated.
On the third or fourth lesson, with those dynamics in mind, I began to say something to him--often. "No one expects you to know how to do this. You're new to it, and we expect you to have to learn."
I don't know if it helped him. But it did seem to relax his shoulders and take a little of the weight of expectation off of him. And it reminded me to be gentle as I taught him, and to keep my own expectations in check. That (plus a lot of prayer and grace) has made the next few lessons go a little more smoothly.
I was thinking about that experience this morning in the context of another. We're in the teen trenches around here, a season that is fraught with angst and heartache and big, real emotions. I've talked before about our journey through mental health challenges, and that journey continues. In every aspect of life lately, it seems, we face big, unknown, heavy things. And the stakes are high.
As a parent (and just as a person), I often fall into the same mindset my son had. I seem to expect that I will know how to respond to every situation, that I'll know how to give my kids the guidance they need to navigate things I've never had to navigate myself. I expect perfection from myself, right out of the gate, every single time.
As if I wasn't a rookie parent of teens.
As if it wasn't my first time to go through most of the things I go through in life.
No wonder I feel soul-weary and bone tired.
During my devotions this morning, I clung (quite literally, albeit spiritually) to the verses in Matthew 11:28-30.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
I've read the passage hundreds of times through the years, most often stopping at the promise of rest. I need rest--desperately, to be sure. Other times, it's the promise of a light burden and an easy yoke that draws me in, especially contrasted with the heavy weight I carry.
But today it was a different part that leapt off the page: Learn from me.
Throughout the past year as I've been navigating the writing and publishing waters, raising teenagers, being a wife, nurse, friend... being a human, I've often turned to the passage in Isaiah 41 that promises, "I will help you." It's become my mantra when I write, especially, and come up against brick walls that I can't seem to skirt around. I take a deep breath and remind myself, "He promised to help you. You don't have to fear; He will help."
And He has, every single time.
But still, somehow, I continue to fall into the trap of approaching life with the confidence of a sixteen-year-old. With the expectation that I will know how to do all of this. And that, more than anything lately, has been exhausting and overwhelming.
Yet here in these verses there is a different offer. Learn from me.
I don't have to have all the answers. He doesn't expect me to. Nor does he assume I'll figure them all out on my own. His offer is to spare me from all of that; to instead sit at His feet and learn how to do all of this. Not only that, but He is a gentle and humble teacher. He won't shout at me or hold my mistakes against me. He won't create lofty expectations that are unattainable. He won't scold me for not already knowing things I've never yet had the opportunity to learn. No, He offers the chance to quiet myself, to sit at His feet and learn from Him gently.
That, today, is a balm to my soul.
Like Mary, I am choosing to set aside all of the heavy, scary, overwhelming, very real, new-to-me things I have been carrying for far too long. I am choosing to set down my ability to solve things on my own, and my expectations for myself. I am laying down my perfectionism and false confidence. They are burdens that are much too heavy for me, and they are draining the life from my soul. Instead, I want to quiet my heart and mind. To take on the posture of a student--the kind that doesn't have all the answers yet--to learn from Him. To bask in the gentleness and humility of His teaching and let it wash over my battered heart.
And when I get up from this place, it won't be to take up my own yoke again. Instead, He'll give me His--which is light and easy, not because it ignores all the real, hard things in life; but because He Himself carries it with me.
