The Parenting Trap

Here’s the hard truth. Are you ready to hear it? It’s not going to be popular or sugar-coated or comfortable. It’s a trap many parents walk into with the best of intentions, but ignorance of the gospel. Ready? Here it is:

You can do everything according to all the experts in your parenting journey, and your kids could still walk away from Jesus.

♦ Stay together as a couple with love and happiness in your household. check

♦ Go to church as a family, build a firm foundation of faith. check

♦ Pray together, both as a couple and as a family. check

♦ Encourage openness, ask the hard questions, be there for them emotionally. check

♦ Provide things for them, but don’t over indulge. Help them learn the value of work and study. check

♦ Give lots of physical affection and words of affirmation. Let them know they are always loved. Show grace, yet speak truth. check

♦ Give them both an anchor and wings. check

Fact of the matter is, no matter what you do right, or what you do wrong; no matter how hard you pray or how close you feel your relationship is, your children still have the choice to go their own way.

It’s heartbreaking.

That’s how God feels all the time. He so loved the world that He gave His only Son to restore the broken relationships. And still people argue that He doesn’t even exist. They insist that they’re better off without Him. They want to do their own thing without restrictions. Without consequences. Without fellowship with God.

It’s devastating.

And yet He loves His children, rebellious or not, and we love ours. He refuses to give up on them, constantly seeking to woo them back. And we don’t give up on ours.

Love them well. I haven’t yet figured out what that looks like, but I know part of it is not throwing their sin in their face. I know it means maintaining a relationship and speaking truth in love. I know it means letting them know that they are loved no matter what they have done, simply because they are my children.

“Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5b, NIV.)

On this earth, our nights of weeping are not yet done. But the promise is this: rejoicing comes in the morning. If I didn’t believe that, I would curl up and die.

“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4, NIV.)

If loving wayward children well can reflect the deep, deep love God has for them, then I will keep loving mine, praying for that day of repentance.

I could look back and say, “We should have made sure they were owning their own faith. We should have listened better. We shouldn’t have let them hang out with that person. We should have kept a better eye. We shoulda, shoulda, shoulda.”

Don’t fall into that parenting trap. Do the best you can, and surrender your children to Jesus. And pray, pray, pray.

Their salvation is not your burden.

Their decisions are not a reflection of your worth.

Much as I want my children’s lives to look like the pretty postcard I pictured when they were born, it’s not about me, and I’m not in control.

No matter the pain and heartache I experience with every decision that rejects Jesus, God is still good.

Through my tears I won’t fall into the trap that says I blew it somewhere along the line; I should have been a better mother.

After all, it’s not about me, it’s about Jesus. It’s always about Jesus.

Of Lice and Sin

The dreaded text came late one night while my daughter was away from home visiting my sister and brother-in-law across the country: “Mooooooom! I have lice!”

Whaaat? How? Where did they come from? As my husband would say later, these are not helpful questions.

After calming down my daughter via text message and having her talk to her aunt, I hopped on the internet to do some research.

I made it 20 years of child raising before facing this experience.

I don’t recommend it to anyone.

Also, don’t google this issue unless you absolutely have to. You’ll have nightmares. I promise.

And so my lucky sister got to be the first to start dealing with this problem. Do we try natural solutions which may or may not solve the problem? Do we go the traditional shampoo route? A combination of the 2?

No matter what was decided, one thing was clear: they had to do something. Leaving the situation untreated was not an option.

Once my girl came home a few days later, we spent the next 2 weeks diligently combing her hair every day and shampooing with the special shampoo at least 2 more times.

Those 2 weeks of nit picking taught me something: lice are a lot like sin.

 

When looking for nits, the teeny little lice eggs that would hatch if left alone, I had to have a bright light and good eyesight. I used a very fine-toothed comb and spent a solid hour combing through small clusters of golden hair looking for those eggs that closely matched the highlights glittering in my child’s locks. It was a tedious process, but it was necessary to make sure that no more little buggies were going to live to multiply again.

It’s the same with sin. We must ask God to help us see what we are not seeing in our own lives. Are we harboring anger against anyone? Is pride gaining a foothold? Are we compromising in even a small way?

The unexamined life leaves sin to gestate and hatch and grow and molt until it reproduces into something that eventually takes over.

The results won’t be pretty.

King David asked the LORD to search his heart and see if there was any evil way in it (Psalm 139:23).

We need to know that any sin, no matter how small, will multiply if we do not ask for God’s help in identifying it and eradicating it from our lives.

A couple of days after I had declared my child to be nit free, another friend texted saying she thought she had lice. Oh no, please, Lord. As I asked questions and heard her description of her experience, in all my expertise of 2 weeks of dealing with this issue, I began to doubt that what she was seeing was an infestation. Sure enough, when she came by for me to check a few hours later, the  little white stuff she was seeing in her hair was not nits, but simply dandruff from a recent change in shampoo.

Relief was felt by all.

I’m not suggesting that we beat ourselves up over every imperfection—His grace is sufficient for our shortfalls—but I am suggesting that we not overlook what God is nudging us to take care of. Those little Holy Spirit itches that alert us that something might be amiss. The counsel of a wise and loving friend can help us identify if an attitude is wrong or an action is not Christlike, but as in the false alarm of my friend, sometimes we might think we see something that truly isn’t there.

But isn’t it better to have it checked out than to assume it’s nothing and let it go?

Since my kids are older, I thought I had bypassed the lice issue. But I was wrong. I should have been aware that we were still vulnerable.

Just like with sin.

I have a good marriage, but I don’t take for granted that my husband or I won’t become hard hearted toward each other some day. We need to protect and nurture our relationship.

My kids have good friends, but someone could still come along and lure them away from their relationship with the Lord.

There will be no pointing finger or saying “that will never happen to me.” Truth is, it always could. Just like with lice.

There but for the grace of God go I.

images from pixabay.com; lifehopeandtruth.com; health.com; lovestthoume.com

Down in the Dungeon

There’s a comic strip in the newspaper called “Rose is Rose.” It features a stay-at-home mom, Rose, who has a tattooed, leather-clad biker-babe alter ego. She has a hard-working, love-note writing husband, Jimbo, and a sweet, school-loving boy named Pasquale.

They are a typical family in many ways, but the illustrator of the strip brings out a very important spiritual truth: Every once in awhile, the strip will feature Rose at the bottom of a deep pit, a shackle around her ankle and a deep, disturbing frown upon her face. It’s usually not clear what has happened to plunge her into that dungeon of her own making, but her family is usually waiting at the top, trying to coax her out. But Rose alone holds the key.

Our dungeons, like Rose’s, are of our own making. Whether we’re simply offended by something unintentional, or truly sinned against, forgiveness is ours to give. It’s always our choice. So is being a blessing to those who have offended us.

“When you forgive,” says Joyce Meyer, “it opens a door for God to heal you, but honestly, it doesn’t do much for the person who offended you. But when you bless them, you ask God to bring truth to them so they can repent and experience the real freedom He provides. Forgiveness” she says “sets you free…blessing your enemies sets them free.”

Romans 12:14 says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”

Likewise, when we repent of something we have done to offend someone else, when they extend forgiveness to us, and bless us by word or deed, then we are set free from the guilt that might plague us, if we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Granted, some people offend us and have no idea they’ve done it, but our forgiveness and, as stated before, our blessing, can serve as a way to clue them in to something that may need to change in their heart. But their repentance is not our job; our extending forgiveness and blessing is.

That self-made dungeon is cold and damp. The air is so much nicer on the outside.

Thankful today for:

279. clouds

280. flowering bushes

281. remote controls

282. tough love

283. community

284. movies