Raising them up
/We sat down last night, after a long winded venting by myself in the kitchen, to read, "Shephering a Child's Heart" by Ted Tripp. ( Wonderful book, for those who are searching for the a way to raise your children in a Christ centered manner!)
I often lose sight of the goal of parenting.
The goal is NOT for my boy's behavior to be "socially acceptable" (I spend too much time harping on the nose picking and other odd ticks that they have that make me squirm and worry about what others think of my boys"). The goal is not for my boy's behavior to make me look like a good mother. The goal of my boy's behavior is not to make them favored in man's eyes.
The goal?! The GOAL is for my boys to grow to fear the Lord (not me!), seek after Him with all their hearts, and glorify him in their actions, thoughts, words!
THAT is the goal!
And that's MY goal! That is MY calling! I fall short much of the time, especially in the area of raising them.
He gave them to us, which means he equipped us. My prayer this morning is that my parenting of them grows to be a beautiful reflection of God's parenting to us. I fear I haven't been a great example of God's patient love to these little crazies.
Along with that - there's a few realizations I had when we were on our trip in D.C. for Josh's AAFP conference last week. My mind has undergone some reconstruction. My view about children has changed. My view about MY children has changed; or is currently changing. It's been a process, and I'm still trying to switch the gears, but it's happening.
This all became very clear when we were in the heart of D.C. surrounded by very "important" people who are very business centered. It was difficult to navigate traffic, busy crosswalks and restaurants with 4 little boys; four little boys that are used to "country" life filled with playing and being rowdy outside for the better part of each day, as boys should be able to do. These business people, they are all just so; dressed in black and in a hurry to get wherever they are going. Yes, a broad generalization, but that is what we were surrounded by for the week we were there. The looks my children got...the looks
I,
as a mother of four boys got. It spoke loudly to the general view of children in our American society (and yes, I do mean our American society - we've gotten this looks even in small towns in Colorado). And it made me sad. It made me sad that they are viewed as in the way. It made me even more sad that
I
, as their mother, viewed them this way until just very recently. (and still do at times) Not completely, but enough for me to feel very sorry for my dumpy attitude. There were two woman who I remember in particular that looked down at my beautiful little 10 month old sitting quietly in his stroller and stepped back, with a grimace, as if he were a zoo exhibit they regretted visiting. A waiter that we had the first night that we went out to eat without Josh laughed when he came up to the table. He looked on with amused confusion and chuckled his words out, "Just you and
the kids
today, huh?! Pfft!" I kept me composure and was gracious, despite wanting to slap him and ask if his mama taught him manners. He communicated with this same amusement each time he came to the table, which was a lot because we were eating our "dinner" at 1:00pm D.C. time and the restaurant had cleared out from the lunch rush.
Why do people view children this way? I'll tell you!
They pick their noses and eat it. Yes. I've nagged up one wall and down another to get them to stop, but they just.don't.stop. It's disgusting, I know. But they are little boys. Children in general do some seriously disgusting things. I remember doing disgusting things as a tyke and not having a clue then that they were disgusting or were earning me grimaces from those surrounding me. I've sleep trained each of my kids and have REALLY good sleepers, but I remain under rested, probably, according to whatever medical suggestions about sleep. As most parents do, I'm sure. Though we sit down for three meals a day together with no tv, I STILL end up eating when I can - when I have the chance. Sometimes that's when they are eating, sometimes it's before because I know that I won't have a chance to enjoy my food if I wait until we are all sitting. It's really RARELY ever relaxing to eat. I'm still wiping 3 hind ends multiple times a day and my oldest's wiping job would never win a cleanliness award. That coupled with the horrible hands washing job despite my best efforts over and over again to teach him the proper washing ways, and the lack of flushing that happens after. They are just gross, and inconvenient, and hyper and foolish, and annoying, and a huge inconvenience and tiring and on and on and on.
The saving grace is that we ALL started that way. All of us were all of those things, no matter how proper our parents tried to make us. We were all booger eating, horrible butt wiping, smelly little bundles of annoyance.
And beautifully created. And the next generation of our countries. And created in God's image. And created just the way He wanted us all to be. And made for a specific reason - EACH and every one of us. No two of us alike. And created to glorify Him. Isn't that NUTS!?
So we can free ourselves from annoyance. We can free ourselves from thinking we are better than them. That we are more loved than them. That we are more socially acceptable than them. (for what is "socially acceptable" compared to Creator acceptable? - not even close!) We can free ourselves from our pride and laziness and hands off approaches to raising them. We can stop looking at them as inconveniences - because we were ALL little once! And we all remain inconvenient to someone, at all times! We were all needing teaching! We were all newborns, we were all infants, we were all toddlers, we were all loud obnoxious 7 year olds that needed to be taught to not eat our boogs.
I
can stop being inconvenienced by their incessant questions.
I
can stop being annoyed by their bodily noises and the giggling that ensues. I can stop thinking of them as in my way. (because
my
way as their mother is supposed to be directed at raising them up - not indulging my own interests above my calling as their mother!) I can stop. I'm still tired. I'm still frustrated by their behavior (imagine how our Creator feels about us! And then think of how entirely patient and gracious he is!) I'm still under rested.
One thing I've learned through being a mother these past 7 plus years is that being patient with someone who has yet to learn all the things I've learned is a challenge, indeed! Humbling myself is hard. Being selfless is REALLY.HARD!
The beauty of it - they are MY children. They each have my genes (and hopefully one day I will have children that don't have my genes). God placed them in mine and my husband's home and equipped us to train up each individual differing personality. And they are all so.different! But, they aren't JUST our children. They aren't just our offspring, our genes. They are HIS children. They are 4 other human beings on the planet that he created just the way he wanted them and he picked them to be in OUR home because he knew that we would be the parents they needed; for whatever reason. His outlook is so grand, so large, so end focused. There are days that I wonder what was going through his brain when he picked my oldest to be my oldest, my most challenging child by far. Elijah's life has a calling - a Creator designed calling . MY job.... mine and my husband's job is to train him up to fear God (not us!), follow hard after God and glorify God. He is ultimately God's child, placed in our home for training. Yes, he came from mine my husband's gene pools - that's how God chose to create new human life - but he does not belong to us, he belongs to God. They each belong to God. Our job is to parent these people and raise them and teach them the way that God parents, raises and teaches us. Woah. And what's more is that it's nearly impossible to do that if we don't know God; if we don't KNOW Jesus. HOW do we get to know Jesus? - by reading the pages upon pages he gave us to read - to know Him. That's how. He made it really simple and straight forward.
My thoughts in this aren't completed and I'm feeling scatterbrained and unable to connect the dots here - but instead of mulling it over I'm going to post this and go sit down and build a train track with my 3 year old who so often gets neglected because of school with the two oldest and a demanding baby who's currently napping.
I challenge you (and myself) to daily remind yourself what your calling is as a parent to your children. Yes, they are difficult, but all of life is. And what a BEAUTIFUL calling to be given; ro train our next generation to know Jesus and love Jesus and follow Jesus!