Out of my heart, under my breath. [A Guest Post]

by Amanda Williams

“Mama, what does ‘dammit’ mean?”

The fact that my four year old daughter didn’t ask me this question at lunchtime is by God’s sheer grace. And possibly the magnetic pull of her fingers and attention to spilled Cheerios on the kitchen counter.

I don’t even remember now why I said it. It could have been any number of things, really. Maybe a stubborn high chair or a thrown sandwich.

The half hour trek from Bible study to the gas station to the pharmacy drive-thru to home was filled with so much whining my ears were ringing from the pitch of it. There was the quick detour on the porch for the boys to dump the dirt out of a plant I’ve been trying to rescue from an untimely demise, and then the chaos that ensued once we walked in the door… Well. Let’s just say Mama was on edge.

I’ll be honest. Four-letter words and I are not strangers. I grew up a good southern church girl, for the most part leaving colorful expressions to friends much bolder than me. But somewhere between the birth of the boys and the potty training of the girl it became a near-daily occurrence, this muttering under my breath the tiny words I would never let a stranger – and rarely a friend – hear me say aloud.

It is out of character for me, after all. Isn’t it?

In my lame defense, the victims of my one-word tirades are usually inanimate objects. A cup of juice knocked to the ground in my hurry to close the fridge. The mysterious smell coming from Lord-knows-where in the kitchen, inevitably encountered upon coming home from a rare out of the house adventure. The toy found by the bottom my bare feet in an effort to sneak out of the boys’ room in the dark.

The cat eating paper, or the dog who barks at thunder. And other dogs. And fireworks. And anything that moves or breathes.

Ok, so they aren’t all inanimate objects.

The point is, it became a coping mechanism. There weren’t any adults around to say adult words to — or anything to, for that matter — so I said them to myself. Those days were (and often still are) long and isolated and hard, so I exercised the freedom to vent to myself on occasion. No big deal.

It made me feel better. And anyone who has ever had the job knows, a day as a stay-at-home parent of small children is not unlike an episode of Survivor. We’re all just trying to make it through another day on the island.

I remember hearing once that who we really are is who we are under pressure. Life squeezes hard and the real me is what comes out.

Today the real me didn’t even bother to whisper. And now I’m thanking God that my children didn’t bother to listen.

This is not a post about whether it is okay for a Christian to curse. Those kinds of debates — the kind that college Amanda thrived on — tend to go round and round, from liberty to responsibility and back again. Honestly, I don’t have the intellectual or emotional energy to chase that tail any more. It doesn’t interest me.

The question that stirs me now is not one of legalism versus grace, sanctification versus sin. It is, What is going on with my heart that makes me utter bitterness with my mouth?

What is happening in me that can make me speak words of anger — ABOUT A SANDWICH, for crying out loud — in the face of my children?

Why am I doing what I’m doing? Why am I saying what I’m saying?

With what am I filling my heart and, in turn, my children? Better yet, with what am I not?

I’m afraid the answers to these questions aren’t pretty. And unfortunately, I’m not ramping up here to the reveal of some magic formula to make the struggle disappear. Truth be told, I suspect there isn’t one.

All I am confident of is that the answer is ongoing, one that you and I will get to spend years uncovering. And also, that it has something to do with Jesus.

I ran across a quote this week that keeps jogging around my brain. It inspires the mom in me, the writer in me, the believer in me, the whole of me.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

- George Eliot

I cannot relive the hour from 11:30 to 12:30 that day. I screwed up, boiled over. I cannot make that person who showed her temper and lost her cool into a person overflowing with patience and commanded by grace. But the storm of frustration will come my way again, sooner than later, be it disguised as lunch time chaos, a school morning full of mishaps, or any variety of potty emergencies. When that familiar wind blows, I can choose to remember rather than forget.

I can choose to breathe rather than explode.

I can choose to see the young faces in my chaos, to see the Jesus in our kitchen.

I can choose to hold my tongue and find his grace, and I can be what I might have been. This time. And the next.