Stahlke Adoption

A Balancing Act

Any child, whether a singleton or a member of a large sibling group, needs interaction with their parents. I remember reading in one of Brazelton's books (perhaps The Irreducible Needs of Children) that at least thirty minutes a day of uninterrupted one-on-time with a parent helps a child bond with them and flourish.

For our children, belonging to a large family makes them work pretty hard for attention. Each kid has honed their own techniques, some positive and some negative. I work proactively to give them attention, but it's a constant challenge. Thirty minutes a day with six children adds up to three hours!
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As an introvert, I need quiet and time alone to regenerate. I eke out "my" time with three hours off every Monday morning, and solitary work time the rest of the week--laundry, weeding, cooking, waiting in the boys' room for Kola to sleep, etc. Most of my paid job as a music director is solitary, too--planning, computer work, and practicing.

When my need for alone time isn't fulfilled, I get at best crabby and at worst depressed. It does no one in our family any good for Mom to wipe out emotionally.
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So where's the balance? When do I tough it out and play that extra game or pay attention to the fiftieth "Mama, look at this!" When do limits go up? "Mama's taking a nap--is your question really an emergency?" or "I'm in the bathroom right now--is that ok?"

Jonathan and I go round and round about my napping on Sunday afternoons. In our pre-children life, I always took a two-hour nap to recover from rising at 5:00 am and playing two or three worship services. Now Jonathan needs a break from preparing six children for church and doing solitary childcare all morning. In addition, the children haven't had access to me for hours. Consequently, most of my Sunday naps are now more like thirty minutes long.
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Do you ever feel like the message at church was intended just for you? I felt immensely better yesterday to hear that Jesus also dealt with the balance of interaction and regeneration. Here's the appointed Gospel for yesterday's worship service (Mark 4:35-41):

On that day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”

Before this passage, the Gospel of Mark recounts many of Jesus' parables. The Lord had therefore spent much time teaching and interacting with people. In fact, Mark 1:1 describes the scene before the boat trip: Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge.

The boat trip meant time away and an opportunity for Jesus to rest. He must have been exhausted to sleep through such a storm! Many times in his ministry, Jesus withdrew to rest and pray. If he needed it, surely we do, too.

The storm was a bad one. Even the disciples, who were experienced and professional fishermen, feared for their lives and finally woke Jesus to help them. We also fear the storms in our lives and call on Jesus for assistance. His words and their result are a great comfort:

“Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.


Peace!

Be still!

Great calm.
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And then on again to our work.

The appointed Gospel for next Sunday (Mark 5:21-43) finds Jesus touched on every side by humanity:

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
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Makes dealing with only six children seem more manageable.

posted by Stahlkes @ 8:50 AM