The paradox of burnt quiche and victory.

The other morning, Hunter and I decided to go for a walk. We made coffee, put the dog on the leash, and since he has way too much energy to walk like a sane, non rabid animal, we decided to take a pit stop by our apartment's tennis court to toss a ball for him in hopes of exhausting some of his pent up yah-yahs.

The walk started out rough with Ari pulling me down the stairs, causing me to spill hot coffee all over my hand and nearly drop the bag of water bottles, wipes, car keys, and watermelon that I had packed for the walk. I overreacted with a sharp tug on the leash and an angry, "Ari, no!" After that, the morning was basically toast. Hunter joined me at the bottom of the stairs with Judah, and after loading up the stroller and rolling out onto the patch of rocks behind the apartments to reach the court, he proceeded to spill more of my coffee which was now in the cup holder, down the sides of my mug and all over the stroller.

"You're spilling my coffee!" I snapped.

"Sorry, what should I have done to keep it from doing that?"

"I don't know. Don't be so rough with the stroller." I didn't actually have a clue how he could have avoided it.

We reach the tennis courts, and Ari immediately darts through the entrance of the surrounding fence, pulling me into the chain link in a way that agitated my funny bone, and my general self, even more.

Hunter threw the ball first, and after fetching it for us, Ari returned it to me. I cocked my arm back and flung the tennis ball across the court with all my might. I'd say it went less than 7 feet, not even clearing the net. I looked over to see Hunter smirking at me. I gave him a dirty look and refused to play fetch with our puppy for the remainder of the time there.

I was grumpy for the first five minutes of our walk after, despite how many efforts Hunter made to make me laugh. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry for messing up the morning."

Ugh. His patience and kindness can be so annoying.

"It wasn't you." I begrudgingly confessed. "I just didn't want to get over my attitude because it feels like I'm losing a battle if I do."

"But you aren't..." Hunter reminded me.

"I know. But if feels that way."

I'm sure a lot of you do this. You won't really be sure of the rhyme or reason behind why you do or think something until you begin to explain it to someone else, and in doing so, you yourself realize your (not always so sound) logic.

"This is a really lame example," I said, "but with something like grief, you can't just flip a switch and say, 'Okay! I'm over it. Let's move on.' It's like with the real stuff, the stuff that matters and that you genuinely care about, you can't just choose to get over it. When I'm upset or annoyed about something, I feel like just flipping a switch and deciding to let it go takes away the validation of how and why I felt that way, and I don't like admitting that I'm wrong or that I overreacted."

I spent the rest of the walk mulling this over with Hunter. We bantered back and forth and the conversation evolved over time. I think by the end of our walk we were arguing over whether or not I had seen the spiders web that Hunter had walked directly into.

Last night, when we were laying in bed, Hunter asked how I was doing, like he usually does. I said I was disappointed and he predictably followed with the question, "Why?"

Here's more dialogue that I attempted to reiterate verbatim.

"Because I lost my temper with Judah again today and yelled at him. He always looks so confused and upset and I don't want those to be the kinds of memories he has of me." At this point I began to cry, just thinking about the ridiculousness of the day.

The oven in our apartment is old. It won't even turn on unless you have it set to at least 450 degrees and at that temperature, most things, like quiche for instance, burn. To complicate my baking even farther, the oven will also randomly decide to turn off so it will cool down and reheat according to its electrical whims. The quiche that I was baking therefore would burn on top but remain a soggy, leaky mess in the middle. Why was this Judah's fault? Well, he wanted to climb inside of the oven, and he also would scream and cry when I refused to let him do so. After the 100th time of checking the quiche and finding it burned and yet somehow still raw, and then having Judah throw a tantrum when I pulled his hand away from the 450 degree oven door, I myself began a tantrum of my own.

"OK! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!" I threw the oven mitt on the counter and then slammed my fist down screaming, "JUST DO YOUR JOB! DO YOUR JOB!" I knew I was being irrational in that moment, trying to reason with an appliance from the 90s, but I didn't care. Judah continued to pitch a fit on the floor as I kenneled the dog, switched off the oven, and grabbed the car keys. "We're leaving!" I screamed as I unglued Judah from the floor. I tossed him in his carseat and proceeded to the Blue Ridge Parkway, playing the anthems from my playlist, "Forget It" that I used to pull out when getting over guys in high school and college.

Moments would fly by as quickly as the trees outside my window in which I would hear a small voice whisper, "Emily, you're being selfish. You're wrong. You know you're overreacting. This isn't a healthy response." but I didn't care. I chose to sit in my self pity, relishing the hot tears that had made their way down my cheeks.

Hunter listened patiently to my saga while giving me cuddles, before he responded with something along these lines. Again, this is an attempt at verbatim.

"You know, there are so many external talents you wish you had, but you don't really appreciate some of the really important intrinsic ones that make you such a good mom. You're as stubborn and hard headed as anything, but when you break and admit you're wrong, you're so humble and so willing to admit to your error. I don't think what Judah needs from us as parents is a perfect demonstration of what it looks like to live a "good christian life" but to show him, when we err, what it looks like to have a soft heart that is full of repentance. In a lot of ways, I think that is more valuable than a parent who never appears to mess up."

I connected these two moments this morning while making coffee. It's a Christian cliché to say that in defeat we find victory, and that through our weaknesses, Christ's power is made all the more evident (Or maybe I'm just quoting Corinthians) But as I reflected on the failings that had made me feel like such a terrible wife and mom, I began to realize that although Hunter and I enjoy and fondly remember our good times together, it is often the difficult moments that make me feel more connected and unified with him afterward. It is only in the areas of our lives that are rough patches, or the parts of our personality that make us unpleasant company, that grace is able to flourish.

The opportunity for its presence alone, I am learning, is worth the turmoil or aggravation because when we see our rottenness, but then experience forgiveness and an embrace, we are given one more tiny example of what the story of the Gospel really means for us. I've thought this for a while, but each season of my life continues to confirm in my mind, that our lives are just a massive story telling of what it means to be at the foot of the cross. Demonstration after demonstration, in all shades, shapes, forms, and ways, displays through my own personal experiences, what it is like to be plunged beneath the depths of my own sins, using the very reason for my condemnation, as an impenetrable shield against defeat. Because in our defeat, the defeat of our sin, our pride, our jealousy, our pettiness, and our malice, we find victory.