Stephanie & Landon Elliott

** S O M E O F M Y F A V O R I T E W R I T I N G S **

"So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 2 Corinthians 4:12

Being forced into hard places gives us a whole new perspective on life. Things we once valued no longer hold the same value. Small things become big things, and what we once thought big no longer holds such importance.
These hard places allow us to identify with the sufferings of others. It keeps us from having a shallow view of the hardships of others and allows us to truly identify with them. Those who speak of such trials from no experience often judge others who have had such hardship. It is a superficiality of Christian experience that often permeates shallow believers.
Those who have walked in hard places immediately have a kinship with others who have walked there also. They do not need to explain; they merely look at one another with mutual respect and admiration for their common experience. They know that death has worked a special thing in them. This death leads to life in others because of the hard places God has taken them through.
It is impossible to appreciate any valley experience while you are in it. However, once you have reached the top of the mountain, you are able to appreciate what terrain you have passed through. You marvel at what you were able to walk through. The valley of the shadow of death has yielded more than you ever thought possible. You are able to appreciate the beauty of the experience and lay aside the sorrow and pain it may have produced.
Death works in you for a greater purpose. If you are there today, be assured that God is producing something of much greater value than you will ever know.

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they everexisted. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the blackbutton eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lowerlip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. Itake great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the samebooks I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me intheir opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make melaugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel andprivacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I l ike.Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and movefood from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is burieddeep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable hazeof the past.Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on siblingrivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education,all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild ThingsAre, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if youflipped the pages dust would rise like memories.What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on theplayground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raisingchildren is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomesmultiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is anendless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well topositive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voiceand a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time mylast arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research onsudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shiftingcertainty is terrifying, and then soothing.Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the researchwill follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton'swonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts ofinfants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quietcodicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrongwith his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was Iinsane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He cantalk just fine. He can walk, too.Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When-Mom-DidHall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language,mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horriblesummer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of theclassroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did youget wrong? (She insisted I include that. ) The time I ordered food atthe McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without pickingit up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was Ithinking?But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make whiledoing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on aquilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, andhow they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wishI had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner,bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and thegetting it done a little less.Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me andwhat was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now Isuspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded ina thousand ways that I back off and let them be.The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound upwith the three people I like best in the world, who have done more thananyone to excavate my essential humanity.That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were....