This is the latest guest post from blogger Rebecca Frech. It’s another great one and we’ve been so happy to have her here this past month.
Can you hear the crying in my house? The 5 month old has been at it pretty much non stop since yesterday afternoon, and I can’t find any pacifiers. How is it possible that we can own easily a dozen binkies and the only one we’ve run across is “the one she doesn’t like”?
She is our first binky baby, but after having two thumbsuckers who wouldn’t give it up (and you can’t just cut their thumbs off to break the habit….that’s kinda frowned on….plus they still have all those fingers….it just doesn’t work) we were thrilled that she took right to the pacifier and loves it. LOVES IT!
I’ve spent the last few hours frantically looking, bribing the older children to keep looking ($1 for every one you can find!), and trying to reason with my daughter. You know, I tell her, binkies aren’t real. Well, they’re real. They do exist. But they’re not what you really want. They’re this weird rubber substitution for something that is warm and love and wonderful. Binkies just make you feel better because they make you think they’re the same thing, but they’re not. Cheap imitation, that’s all they are. I know these things, I was a binky addict, too.
She just scrunches her forehead up and looks at me in that too-wise-for-words way that babies have when they know everything and clearly you’re an idiot. She should listen though, because this time I actually know what I’m talking about.
The more I discuss this with my skeptical child (who only listens as long as I’m nursing her) the more I realize that I’m still a binky addict. I just have different addictions now….like shoes, shopping, and chocolate cake. These things all seem like great ideas, but they have become my crutch when life is too difficult to deal with head on, so I shop or I eat….mostly I eat which has not been good for my waistline….or I find some way of trying to make myself feel safe and loved in the moment. It only works as a temporary fix, because it is not what I really want. I, like my daughter, am being fooled by the pale imitation of love. These things aren’t real.
What I’m looking for in the shoe store or in the yummy goodness coming out of my oven, is that feeling of peace, joy, and love which seems to have gotten lost around here. The bigger the stress gets, and the scarier things are, the worse my prayer life gets and the more I look for something to cover my fear. I start looking for binkies. The problem is that binkies don’t really work long term. They’re a temporary band aid, a distraction from reality.
What if I took a cue from my daughter, and when the plastic fakeness fails to satisfy….what if I was to cry out for something real? What if instead of trying to placate myself with the illusions of love and safety, I actually started asking for them? I have the Blessed Mother. I have the Heavenly Father. How dumb am I to accept comfort anything less? What if I were to throw the binkies aside and cry out to My Parents? What if I were to let them hold me in their arms like I’m cradling my now dozing girl? Because my girl knows the truth, binkies are temporary. True Peace can only be found by trusting in my Parents enough to cry out to them and then allow them to enfold me in their arms.
Rebecca Frech blogs at Shoved to Them.
