Car Conversations with Bamber

It’s amazing how little we know about our parents growing up. I mean they are raising us. It’s (hopefully) not like they are those distant aunts or uncles that live in, like, Delaware and randomly send you stamps or something. (Why would they send stamps? Who knows? That’s why you keep your distance).

I’ve known my mother, Bamber, for my entire life, but not really as a person. For most of my life, she has only been defined as my mother – i.e. the Giver of Life, Food Provider, Bank System, Home. She hasn’t really been a person. She hasn’t been herself. An individual. A person who had a life before me or besides me and my siblings. She was always just My Mom. However, she is so much more than that. She has a life besides mothering the three of us and wifering Joshua or doing chemistry for the government (thanks, Obama). She had a life before me that kept on going; I just only saw the part literally right in front of me.

My mother has a story, and it’s a great one. She has hopes and dreams that go beyond raising me (gasp) and, here’s a curve ball, she’s still learning. Today, she drove me two hours to the train station. We talked about all sorts of things: God, friends, life, sin, traffic safety, etc. The older I get, it’s like the more she shares with me, which makes sense. It’s also a blessing, a huge mega super one.

My mother is an amazing woman; my mommy is pretty spectacular.

There’s so many reasons as to why this is true, and I would love to brag about how she raised me and worked so hard and sacrificed and believed and learned, but that’s for another time. Instead, I just wanted to share a little tiny bit of our conversation via van. Two parts, actually, because I think they are both really cool/helpful/hopeful. They have to do with God, like most of my blog posts seem to have been lately (thanks, Christian Private School. Just kidding. God’s just doing stuff - doing His thang and whatnot - which is always nice . . . and always a thang).

So you know how you can know something but not really believe it? Like I can know what the derivative is but not really believe in its existence until I can properly find it using triangle symbols and sheer dumb luck. That was an awful example, just like Calculus.

But, do you know what I’m saying? I can turn eighteen and know that I’m a legal adult but not really believe it until months of living on my own/paying my own bills/voting/getting married/winning the lottery/going to big people jail. Or, in the case of our conversation, I can grow up knowing that I am loved by God, but not really believing it for eighteen years.

You’d think I would know. The first song I ever learned was probably “Jesus Loves Me.” I even learned it in Sign Language. The idea that God loves me was hammered into my brain at Sunday school and at church, but I didn’t truly believe it until my freshman year of college, three years after becoming a Christian, eighteen years of being alive.  

God chose to reveal His love for me at a time when I really needed it and in a way that it just changed my life.

At church we grow up learning and being taught about God’s character, but it is only when He reveals it to us in little bits and pieces that we can truly know it and have it mean something bigger than just something handed to us. He gives it to us so we can make it our own and fall into a deeper love with Him and make it our own.

Idk, I just thought that was pretty dang cool. So did Bamber.

The other thing Bamber and I talked about that I wanted/needed to write down had to do with our “Thing.” We started talking about how, as we grow older, we can start to see just where our weak area is: our really deep sin struggle. (I’m totally making up these terms on the fly, so bear with me). I mean, we all sin TONS every single day and we break every single commandment probably every day, too. However, I think God does give us each our own unique struggle in a specific area. I also believe it is for a reason.

Really quick examples. One is a man who seems like one of those stereotypical Great Christians (you know whom I’m talking about. You also know, truly, that there are no such things. We are all hopeless sinners, made beautiful by a King humbled to die on a cross). He is a leader and super nice and, like, the perfect grandpa, but he struggles loving people. What? How can he struggle loving people; he’s supposed to be perfect? Or it’s a dad who gives up everything for his family but struggles with anger. It’s the mother who raises her kids to love Jesus but questions if she’s saved or not.

We all have something. Mine is definitely control. I have to be in control. Of myself, of my body, of my time, of my life. It’s a sin. It’s been the struggle of my heart for so very long.

As we grow older, we can see them in others and in ourselves more and more so.

Bamber also pointed out that these things are not something that we just chose to have or get. God puts circumstances in our lives or plans our stories in a way that makes these challenges develop. Like the dad whose dad was always angry and that’s all he ever knew so he grew up like that, too. Or the grandpa hurt by the people he loved and has trouble loving anyone else deeply and genuinely ever again.

It’s not like we are given these struggles as a punishment or are randomly overcome by them; they were developed by our worlds, over years of living and being human and living in a sinful world.

They are part of a Plan.

A glorious, glorious Plan that we are a part of. And that gives so much hope, I think. God knew what they would be; He knows every circumstance. He also gives us the power to overcome. He gives us bits and pieces of His character to guide us, even when we might not be seeking after Him. He gives us Himself in little spoonfulls at a pace we can’t control. He gives us it at the right time to make it matter.

He gives us moms, like Bamber, who, after years of living, are still learning who He is and, loving fiercely, blindly hoping, and willing to admit they struggle.

I just think it’s all really cool.

Lord, You are good. So, so very good.

And, Bamber, I’m so thankful God gave me you.