“Stop talking!”
“I just want to be mean!”
“I don’t want to hug you!”
These are the occasional jewels
that spout from my adorable three-and-a-half-year old’s mouth these days. We are blessed to have them come out in
physical form as well—pushing, hitting, kicking, throwing. It’s funny because so many people think our
family lives in a forever pleasant environment where Starbursts, glitter glue,
and house-broken Boston terrier puppies must be in abundance.
In all honesty, I feel like we
live in a house full of deep breaths, painted on smiley faces, and quick
prayers before approaching volatile situations with our precious blue-eyed
stick of dynamite. In the past six
months, Carter’s growing defiance has leaked out of our house and into school,
church, and neighborhood play. The
biggest low was when I got a call from his teacher at school last month asking
me to come pick him up early because his behavior was uncontrollable. You can guess how much of a Super Mom I felt
like when I saw Carter and his teacher (very nice, by the way) waiting in the
lobby for me. Fortunately, I was able to
turn on my super power of patience and mind-numbing radio listening on the ride
home because “Mommy is so mad and sad right now that I will sin and be very
mean. God does not want me to do that,
so I need to cool off before we talk about what happened at school today. I love you.”
I am so thankful to God for that blissful ride home.
Now, as a Biblical Counseling
student, I have read Shepherding...
while still giving my little guy some ...Grace. And my goodness, I just wrote a research
paper on heart change in preschoolers last semester! With all of this, I know God really just wants
me to take my open-faced heart sandwich with a side of extra humility (pretty
sure they serve that at Waffle House) and go to His Word.
His Word. Well, I skipped Proverbs because I’ve been
inundated from last semester’s Counseling Parents and Children course with the
book’s emphasis on children needing to be disciplined and how parents should
not take this lightly; I know, it’s a major responsibility. I felt God was leading me more down the path
of appreciating this time He has given me with Carter rather than seeing it as
such a hassle.
God showed me how the compassion
He has on us should reflect the compassion we have on our children in Psalm 103:13. He reminded me in Psalm 127:3
that children are a reward. In Matthew 19 (as well as Mark 10 and Luke 18), God brought me back to His welcoming
delight for little children. But Luke
2:51 hit me hard…
At the end of Luke 2, we find
that Mary and Joseph left 12 year old Jesus behind in Jerusalem. (Big oops, but we’ve all been there--plus or
minus a day’s journey.) After three days
of searching in the city, they find Jesus engaging in conversation with the
teachers in the temple. They are
astonished and question how He could have left His parents in such a frantic
state to which Jesus asks why they wouldn’t have figured He would be in His
Father’s house. Mary and Joseph didn’t
quite understand what He meant, but, in verse 51, it says:
But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.
I don’t know why this resonated
with me, but I kept coming back to it.
Obviously, Jesus was God in the flesh, the perfect, sinless sacrifice
for mankind, and my son is a sinner like us all. In fact, this reminded me that I may not
always understand why Carter decides to act a certain way or say a certain
thing, but there’s a lesson to be learned whether for him or for me. I’m astonished like Mary when at one moment
Carter will whine about what shoes he will wear and the next moment he asks me
to tell him about the new bodies we will have in heaven. Wow, the roller coaster never stops.
With this, I ask myself about
what I am treasuring in my heart with my boy at this stage. Am I at such a loss of words that I let anger
take over? Am I allowing myself to be a student
with Carter as God’s instrument? Am I
letting the push and pull of discipline saturate our lives? Does it have to? Am I really using the events throughout the
day to feed Carter’s mind, heart, and spirit as well as mine? In the ups and downs of childrearing, what am
I specifically allowing to be planted in my heart and what will be the
resulting fruit?
God, the beautiful boy You gave us is growing up so fast. Help us to never forsake a moment. Give us patience and understanding while
dispersing firmness in discipline with grace and compassion that reflects Your
Son’s character. Feed my heart with
lessons that I may not comprehend.
Remind me that what I deem as treasure will reveal where my heart truly
is (Matthew 6:21).
No comments:
Post a Comment