I’ve written before that Grace likes to write her feelings, it’s one way for her to get them all out that seems to be easier than getting them out between tears.  Sometimes it doesn’t always go so well.  Here are just some of the notes I have received:

• Call the orphanage
• I’m packing my bags, I don’t want to be your girl anymore
• It doesn’t seem like you like me very much
• I’m leaving
• I can’t live here anymore
• And last night’s gem… Stop it right now! It’s like you don’t like me, or we don’t even exist!  What do you have to say for yourself??  Answer:

It has taken me a lot of work (and a lot of talks with my sister) to learn that Grace’s notes and feelings are very important and I MUST be a safe place for her to bring them.  If I scream and yell when she brings them to me, she will learn that I am actually NOT a safe place for her and that is certainly not what I want to have happen.  So I breathe.  I remind myself of this fact.  I breathe some more.  I plead with Jesus for patience that I simply do not have.  I NEED to be the safe person she comes to, not some boy when she’s a teenager.  And here we go.

I don’t just ignore the words she writes.  With last night’s letter, I told her I would gladly talk about her feelings when she could write them in nicer words, and that’s all I said.  When she brought me the third note this summer about running away because she couldn’t handle the rules (about cleaning her room – seriously, I’m soooo mean), I calmly told her I would not be accepting anymore letters like that.  Those types of letters are manipulative (I then explained manipulative) and she’s just trying to get out of cleaning her room.  I will talk about her feelings, but I will not be reading letters like that anymore.  And they actually stopped!

My sister did a great job once of explaining to me that Grace’s feelings are the biggest part of her, and inside of her head is the most exciting place for her.  So when she invites me in there, it is a great privilege and I cannot take it lightly.  I must always be willing to patiently listen.  I don’t understand this most of the time, but that just doesn’t matter.  I have to to my job as her mom and help her cope with these feelings that are simply too big for her to tackle on her own, and these worries that seem so insurmountable that she gets splotches on her face from crying so hard.

I write this not as a mom who has figured it out and needs to share all of this great wisdom, but a mom who is crawling through the mud of an emotional child and needs the support of other parents who have emotional children!  Let’s lean on together, friends.  Let’s share what little pieces we’ve figured out in this phase before it passes and we have to figure out the next one.