So if you have young kids that are…well….”vocal” OR you have ever been around my children who talk more than the Jimmy John’s commercial guy….then you know they can be crazy cute at times and at others brutally honest. That’s a great description of my kids on a normal, good day….throw in grief and a truck load of stress and it only gets more intense. But I have learned through our experience this summer to wait before I squelch this voice. I’ve learned to listen and to let them speak….no matter how painful it is.
In Matthew 19, Jesus had been teaching and healing “large crowds” (vs 2) in the region of Judea. He had just got into Judea from Galilee where he had been spending time with the disciples and had JUST finished up his lesson on the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:21-35). In the next scene, some of the people (I’m going to guess their parents) were bringing their kids to Jesus so he could pray over them. The disciples “rebuked” them (had to be harsh) and told them to leave, but Jesus said,
“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (vs 14-15).
Now let’s set the stage for this scene first. So Jesus rolls into Judea with his posse (The Magnificent 12) after traveling over 70 miles by food from Galilee (2 day trip). On his trip he was followed by “large crowds” trying to get him to stop and heal them. So he takes time out of his journey to heal these people. That in and of itself takes a ton of energy out of even the son of the Most High, but after that his good buddies (not really) the Pharisees started hounding him about the rules on divorce to see if he would go against the Law of Moses. So they argue and argue with him on semantics. THEN, after walking 70 miles, healing “large crowds” and dealing with the most evil, religious, pious, whiney, backstabbing, ungrateful, negative people of their day….these well meaning parents brought their kids forward for prayer. Now all the pictures you have seen painted of this verse show Jesus all clean with perfect hair in a fresh outfit with all these perfect little kids climbing all over him while he laughs and pats their happy little heads. You know how I think it looked??? I think Jesus hadn’t shaved in days, hadn’t stopped to bathe, hadn’t been able to wash his clothes in almost a week, and he was exhausted. And the kids they brought to him weren’t the “happy and healthy” kids that just wanted some Jesus time and wanted to hear more nighttime parables. These were kids who were dying, who were really sick, who were injured, who were screaming and dirty and were disgusting. So no one would have blamed Jesus if he had just been like, “Hey guys, I’d love to hug on your sweet little infected babies, but I’m wiped and really need to catch up on “The Bachelor” tonight. I hear that the Woman at the Well is going home to meet his family and I don’t want to miss that episode! So catch me tomorrow say 10:30 so I can sleep in??” Not one person would have blamed him. In fact, he was so tired and probably looked so awful, that the disciples were trying to help him out by keeping all the dirty little germ buckets off of him so they tried to keep them away. But Jesus didn’t bat an eye and told them to “let them come”.
We have walked through some intense discussions with our kids (especially Harper) since we lost Evans. And we have had to decide whether we were going to “let him come” to be open with us and talk to us, or if we couldn’t handle it because we were “hurting too bad” and we kept him quiet. We’ve chosen to let our children have a voice.
One such instance, on Tuesday night, June 17th, just 3 days after baby Heavens (what Ellie calls him. 
) went to be with Jesus, was one of the most intense for me. We had some of our best of friends come over that night to bring us food. I talked to Jason, the dad earlier that day and just said, “Hey, I’m toast, bring the kids with you tonight please and lets all go swimming and just act halfway normal for a night”. We were staying at Cindy’s parents’ house while ours was selling (I know, great timing.) so we had a community pool. So we eat and everyone goes out to the pool to swim. What usually happens at swim parties or when friends come over to swim or play is that within a short amount of time, I end up with all the kids with me and all the adults end up talking together. I love it like this because I absolutely. LOVE. kids. PERIOD. I would rather hang out with a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds that adults ANY day of the week. So this time was no different. After about 15 minutes, I was the lone adult in the pool and had our two kids and our friends’ two kids and was swimming with all of them on one half of the pool and all of the adults were out of the pool on the opposite side talking to Cindy. Two of the girls were hanging on my neck and Harper (an excellent swimmer BTW) was swimming out to me and wrestling with me. He would come out, wrestle, I would throw him off and he would swim to the side, catch his breath and then swim back over to me and we would go at it again. He did this several times and then one time he grabbed me and punched me in the mouth so I grabbed him and REALLY threw him….far. He lands in the water and climbs up on the ledge that is under the water but like a bench area on the side of the pool. He turns to me and throws both arms out in a “What the heck was that?!” gesture and goes, “HEY!! You be careful, I’M THE ONLY SON YOU’VE GOT LEFT!!” I was stunned. Tears began to stream down my face as I pulled the other kids off of me and I said, “What did you just say?” Harper stood taller, stepped to the edge of the step, leaned out to me and pointed his little 5 year old finger at me and with all knowledge and confidence goes, “I’m the ONLY son you’ve got left….so be careful with me.” I began to sob. “You know, Harper,” I told him, “you’re absolutely right”. I was frozen in the middle of the pool. Harper jumped in and swam over to where I was standing. He popped up out of the water and hugged me around the neck. He very intentionally kissed me on my tear stained face and said, “I really love you, you know.” Then he swam off…..and that was that.
Now, I could have called him down for yelling at me because he was being “disrespectful” or because he was “hurting daddy’s feelings”. I could have made him be quiet. But Harper was trying to talk to his Father. He wanted to make sure I knew that it was just me and him now. I didn’t have another son to fall back on now if something happened to him. He fully understood the weight of the fact that he (for now) is the last Haggerton son. And he doesn’t take it lightly. He was stepping up because he and I were in this together. And why on earth would I take that opportunity away from him???? Because it hurts too bad?? If I never wanted my kids to hurt my heart then I should have stuck with dogs only.
He only said one other thing before he clammed up and went into a month long rage. We were at Old Navy 2 days later and we took him with us. I had packed away every. single. article. of Cindy’s clothes that fit her in our moving truck by accident so we were at Old Navy buying new clothes to travel in. While we were standing in line checking out (Cindy, her sister Marcy, Harper and I), out of the corner of my eye I see Harper move toward Cindy and I couldn’t grab him fast enough to stop him. He walked over to her (like he did at least 25 times every day during the pregnancy) and held her stomach and kissed her belly and said, “Love you baby!”. We all just froze. Cindy started to shake and her eyes started to cloud over. Harper realized what he had done and goes, “Well, I guess I don’t get to say that anymore since we didn’t get to keep OUR baby….” BAM!!! Cindy started sobbing and her sister quickly walked away with her. I brought a very emotional, confused and slightly agitated Harper over to my side and held his face in my hands and kissed him and said, “Hey buddy, mommy is still very very sad that we lost your brother so why don’t you just tell daddy things like that…ok?” He nodded like it was no big deal and went on to talking about his new soccer ball. For him, it was a factual statement like, “Sure is sunny outside today.” The poor cashier had no idea what was going on so I quietly apologized and hurriedly payed out and we left the store.
After about a month of fits of rage and him knocking the bible out of my hands as I tried to read it and him not wanting to talk about Evans (or any of us talk about him for that matter) he finally opened up. We were driving back from getting snow cones from Bahama Bucks (A-mazing….holy cowdog) in Flowermound and we were listening to worship and being silly and singing with the kids when we hear very quietly from Harper’s side of the car…..”I really miss baby Evans”. I almost slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over. Cindy immediately turned the radio off and glanced at me as she turned in her seat to face Harper, “You want to talk about it buddy?” He didn’t respond. “Do you want to see some pictures of baby Evans?” she asked him. He nodded. So when we got home I got Ellie all ready for bed and Harper sat on the couch with Cindy and went through the slide show of pictures that Natasha had done for us and sent us. He would swipe her phone to switch the picture and would zoom every picture onto everyone’s faces that was in the picture and go, “Aww, Momma…..look how sad you were here..” Then before he would go to the next picture, he would reach behind him (he was sitting in her lap facing away from her) and touch her cheeks to make sure she wasn’t crying. THEN he would go to the next picture. So beautiful.
We brought both kids in bed with us and I asked him, “So when you think about baby Evans and him going to be with Jesus….how does it make you feel?” He thought for a moment and we waited and he said, “It makes me feel really disappointed.” Cindy had to look away as she started to cry, she didn’t want him to stop talking. “Ok buddy, be specific. What does it make you feel disappointed about??” And my little warrior says to me as his voice starts to crack as he starts to cry, “Well, I had all of these things I wanted to be able to do with my little brother. I wanted to hold him, and rock him, and feed him. I wanted to teach him things and read him stories. And now I’m not going to get to do ANY of that!” I hugged him tightly to me and I said, “You know little man, I COMPLETELY understand how you feel. Your mommy and I are both really REALLY disappointed too. That’s ok to feel like that and it’s totally normal.” We prayed with them and I prayed over Harper and then they got into bed and went to sleep.
If I had yelled at him the few weeks before for having his outbursts of rage, or had disciplined him for hurting his mommy’s feelings at Old Navy, or had called him down and ‘put him in his place’ for being disrespectful to me at the pool……do you think he would have felt confident enough to tell me how he felt all those weeks later?!? No way.
It has been a HUGE lesson for Cindy and I to step back and really REALLY hear what our kids are trying to say, not just what words are coming out of their mouths. Because they have a voice. They hear the Father. They have emotions. They love, they get mad, sad, lonely, scared and frustrated….just like I do. And if I am voicing my feelings out loud and someone shuts me down….I feel completely crushed most of the time. So do they.
Jesus said that the “kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like these children” (Matt 19:14 NLT). Those who are honest, transparent, open, raw, sincere, fragile, scared, and who are completely reliant on a loving Father to tend to all that ails them. And He wants to be that for you too.
You want to know why I love kids so much?? Because they are so REAL. I love that they will tell you EXACTLY what they think if you ask them. They are not fakers and will never act one way even if they feel another….they can’t. I find that completely refreshing in a day when there are very few adults that are like that because to be like that as an adult can be considered offensive (believe me….I try to be one of those and I offend plenty of people…LOL).
So LISTEN to your children. Hear their HEARTS….not merely their words. There’s always a cause of every symptom. The anger or hateful words is just a symptom of something behind their eyes. They’re mad, or hurt, or scared, or maybe just hungry. Maybe you should take a second and ask yourself “Are they Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? (H.A.L.T)” and then ask something deeper and THEN respond to them.
You’ll probably be shocked, amazed, and thankful for what they tell you.
JB