Redirected
“You have turned my mourning into dancing.” – Psalm 30:11a (NRSV)
Several people in my household are, shall we say, volatile.
It’s not particular to them: children have tantrums. They get mad when they don’t get their way, when they’re called out for being terrible to their siblings, when they perceive injustice (it’s an illusion: my parenting is always, obviously, perfectly fair).
Feeling all your feelings is good, if hard. Insisting that they have to be happy all the time is paving the way for a lifetime of self-harm and trauma. I know this, but I still lose my cool.
When they yell, I yell over them. When I threaten them with lost screen time, they don’t care. They are too caught up in their emotions, in the spiral of feelings.
I am slowly learning that you can’t conquer a tantrum. When my kids’ emotions get too big for them, I can only enter into the whirlwind and offer them a hand: an anchor and a way out. “Let’s breathe. Grab a book or a journal.”
My husband is great at distraction and redirection; a door shuts on an argument and reopens on a giggle-filled dance party. It is magic. It is transformation. It is holy.
My daughter Callie doesn’t like school this year. None of her friends are in her class; she doesn’t have much of a rapport with her teacher. Many mornings, we argue. The other morning, she found black pants, a black Hogwarts shirt, black boots, black hair ties. “I’m goth,” she said. She looked rockin’.
“Look at you,” I gushed, “you’ve turned your mad feelings into fashion!”
Prayer
O God, you are with us in all things, steadfast, turning our mourning into dancing, our anger into art. Open us to your transforming love.
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Bromleigh McLeneghan contributed this devotional to Hard and Holy: Devotions for Parenting, a collection of devotionals for the spiritual practice of raising, teaching, learning from, delighting in, and cleaning up after children. Order Hard and Holy today.