Therapeutically manipulate

Leonard and I had a great trick in parenting.  I learned to call it "therapeutic manipulation" when I used it in my practice with students with autism.  It is pretty basic.  We would verbally assign attributes to our children that they might not currently possess but that we wanted to see in them.  For example, we might say "boy are we lucky we have kids who like to clean up after themselves" or "it is so nice we have children who get along and don't fight".  Magically we started to see the trait become part of their behavior repertoire.  Honestly, I think it might be called brainwashing in a more nefarious setting but we tried to keep our intentions on the up and up.

Today I pulled the same trick on myself.  I got up in front of a congregation of my peers and told them "I love my life".  This after the nearly hourly mantra of hearing myself say "I hate this" echoed in my brain over and over.  'Cause to be honest, I do hate this.  I hate not having my friend to talk through the aspects of my life.  I hate that my boys don't have a man in the house.  I hate the silence, the loneliness, the sorrow, the grief.  I hate it all.

But then I remember a silly little field in Texas.  I lived in San Antonio and did some service work for my church.  Missionary apartments aren't known to be beautiful and this one was no exception.  However, there was a field right outside which we could see from a tiny little window in our apartment.  And this field as fields are want to do in South Texas grew the most amazing wildflowers in the spring.  It seemed like every week we were blessed with another colorful addition.  This field helped me feel how much the Lord loved me.  I felt blessed. I loved my life. 

Then the spring turned into summer and the heat melted the colors of the bluebonnets away.  The flowers all died off and the field became void of all the magic.  But I don't remember feeling any less loved by the Lord.  I just felt like the outward manifestations of His influence in my life had altered with the change of the weather pattern.

So how could I feel that way now?  How could I hate my life if the flowers were gone?

I ran into a love note I had written Leonard when the boys and I left him to travel a few summers ago.  I said something to the effect that he was a blessing in my life for something pretty dang good that I hadn't remembered doing.  And he was.  I didn't deserve to be honored, adored, worshipped, loved and completed by him, but I was.  He was my crazy beautiful Texas wildflower. 

And now that wildflower was gone.

But I can't attribute this loss to a reduction in the love that my Heavenly Father has for me anymore that I could feel abandoned when summer took away flowers.  It is not the blessings that make me love my life.  It is the Father who grants those blessings that makes me happy.  Therefore, I had to say "I love my life."

I have to admit this isn't always true but it is an attribute I want to see in myself.  I want to see myself get off the couch again.  I want to see myself love my job again.  I want to see myself get up early to run again.  Heck, I'd settle for just being able to feed my children again.  And if I learned anything from co-parenting with my Leonard for 13 years, sometimes you have to manipulate, brainwash , remind yourself of whatever you want to see.  I love my life.