Have you ever lost hope? Sometimes, as parents, when we hold our child, our hearts are haunted. Will it always be this way? It is impossible to believe.
The fears overwhelm us. We are crawling out of the pit, hoping to see the light of day, and then we tumble back in. It never ends, in fact, it gets worse.
It can look like anger: anger at our child, anger at ourselves, and anger at God. We shake our fists.
Our child is quirky, or out-of-control, or withdrawn, or disabled, or sick, or depressed. We are befuddled and our hearts are broken with grief and fear.
We are on a desolate and lonely journey carrying a heavy burden. We have lost hope.
Then, in some sort of mystery, someone speaks to us, with confidence. They speak hope.
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It happened to me this summer. Someone spoke confidently to my heart about his absolute certainty that people heal, grow, learn, recover. He looked me in the eye, with a lifetime of experience, and promised. It was like a mist of water on my scorched summer skin.
I wanted to believe because my heart longs to believe in the possibilities. I want to live in them, to twirl around in the field called ‘posies of possibilities.’
It’s damming to stay where I am.
What a gift! Stepping into the story of summer.
Then, this week, a colleague stopped into my office. She shared from her mother’s heart and her unspoken broken from the summer brimmed over like tears from her eyes. We could both feel the barren and brittle places, where hope is only a mirage.
It can be an elephant on a chest, I can’t breathe, it feels impossible experience. Certainly a struggle to believe.
But, it happened to her too! Someone spoke confidently to her heart about his absolute certainty that people heal, grow, learn, recover. He looked her in the eye, with a lifetime of experience, and promised. It was like a mist of water on her scorched summer skin.
What a gift! Stepping into the story of summer.
At Learn Forward we are nourishing the sacred work of teachers and parents.
So, I turn to the teachers…
What if we could believe for every child? We could believe that children heal, grow, learn, recover? What if we could believe in goodness for the child’s journey, with certainty? We could promise?
The gift would be immeasurable, our hope when someone despairs.
For every cracked pot…
It is our sacred work.
It will take faith.
Every parent, every child, every poverty, every misbehaviour, every tragedy, every disability, and every trauma…
You see, at the Table of Learning, a parent’s heart is yearning and hungering for the promise for their child. A child’s heart is yearning and hungering too.
What if we believe?
Could we be like a mist of water on scorched summer skin? Could we share our hope?
We could believe for them. When a parent is wandering in a barren place and a brittle land…we could believe.
For the sake of the children,
Karine
PS Do you feel ill-equipped for this task? So do I. I wrote a book to try to work through it. To simplify. You can order your copy on amazon or any online source. Join me on the blog next week to get more practical. I have some ideas…
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