Parenting the Heart

I have been noticing a trend lately with my two year old: Anything that he does not want that I offer to his baby sister, he regains a sudden interest in. I think God saved the best commandment, the hardest for last: Thou shalt not covet. Its not about evident behavior, its about the heart.  It's the latest challenge for me these days.

How do I parent in such a way that I deal with the squishy issues of the heart and motives through the evident behavior? After all I am trying to parent in a way that points above me to something/one higher. It is hard to do with a two year old and not feel like you are being a legalist. You can't make rules about everything.

I'm finding that I get why the pharisees developed so much commentary on the OT. They wanted to make the application clear. That's the deal though. You can't prescribe it.

What I do think kids get much better than my holding their behavior under a microscope, is holding my own. I have had to apologize to my two year old at least half a dozen times now, and that's probably a conservative estimate. Its amazing that I can tell Isaac not to yell in anger, but when I have and apologize, it registers with him.

Its humbling to realize as a parent that probably my best parenting, the lasting impact of my parenting may not be the ways in which I did it right, but modeling how to handle my doing it  wrong. What I mean is that my most important lesson to my children is not how to NOT sin and how to be perfect all the time. Its how to repent and have brokenness about my sin. How to both accept my own forgiveness and be a conduit of God's forgiveness to others. That doesn't happen without admitting that my own sin shows up to the party frequently, and allowing my repentance process to be evident to my children.

Boy its been a strange and humbling realization that my biggest impact on my kids might be their watching my failures and how I deal with that. It is the ultimate test of what I really say I believe.

So I hold up a standard to them which neither I nor they can meet, and then hold up the cross. No wonder Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing." John 15:5. Jesus, let me walk before my kids in such a way that they see your redemptive work in my life and theirs. Amen.

Go Ahead and Ask

Recently my husband has lost a  bunch of weight. So yesterday Mike tells me with a heavy heart that his wedding ring fell off his finger at some point in the day. He had retraced his steps and couldn't find it anywhere.  I asked him if we could pray to find it. So we did. And then I went out the garage and in the driveway and every other place I could think of. No ring. Privately I told the Lord it would really mean a lot to me if He would let Mike find it because I knew it would really speak to Mike in a special way, for the Lord to answer such a small prayer that matters so much to us.

I hoped in my heart the Lord would answer me as He has so mercifully in so many other ways. Yesterday, no ring. Today, no ring. I have to be honest, when it didn't show up right away yesterday I started giving myself the mental out, and Mike too. I told him not to worry if we couldn't find it we would just go back to the jewelers and replace it, no big deal. But in my heart I hoped. Hoped that God would once again answer my prayer. For some reason when He does that for me, it speaks to me. I guess because its an amazing thought to know that the God of the Universe, who knows all things, knows where it is. You see to me, its in these moments that I realize the vast chasm between Christianity and other religions.

Because I don't merely seek a state of peaceful being, worship a lofty God not to be bothered with such trivialities, or simply ponder the wisdom of timeless truth; I worship an all knowing, all powerful God who is personal. So personal that such a prayer isn't scorned by Him. Tonight as I was washing the dishes (yes it means the dishes had been in the sink since yesterday) and finally got to the bottom of them, there it was. Mike's ring.  He didn't have to. He would still be good and still be God if He hadn't said yes. But He delights to answer. He delights in our asking Him. That ring, the symbol of our covenant is also a symbol of God's covenant love to us. He sustains our promise with His;  "In Him all thing hold together." Col. 1.

I love that God speaks to me with such symbolism. I can't even keep up with the symbol of my covenant. But He can. He can keep the symbol and the substance of my covenant. So--go ahead and ask. God's greatness will be manifested in just how much He will show you that He can do "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think..." Deuteronomy 33:26 says, "There is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to your help, and through the skies in His majesty. The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms;" I love knowing that in all things and in every season I am both fully known and firmly held in those everlasting arms.

Out of the mouth of babes...

So yesterday was Caroline's day to be baptized. We were very excited. We had her in her beautiful white dress and new shoes. However, right before we get up on the platform to have her baptized we sing a hymn, accompanied by our very large very loud organ. It was so loud she started crying really hard. I was hoping when the music stopped she would stop crying, but no such luck. 

My little happy cheerful girl who rarely cries, bawled her eyes out non-stop the entire ceremony, which the pastor tried to get through as quickly as possible. At first of course I had the feeling of being horrified that my child was "messing up" the ceremony. And then as I was standing there the verse from Romans 9 popped into my head. "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." It occurred to me that Caroline's freaked out crying was a much truer picture of how we come to God. 

We think we should come in our Sunday best all cleaned up, happy and confident. That's bull. That's not how we come to God. We come scared, confused and overwhelmed. We come bawling our eyes out. We come because we are carried by His grace onto the platform of promise to receive the sign of His Spirit. We are just like Caroline and not a bit different.  And when, Lord willing she is able to understand about God's love and His provision for us, and she confesses the belief He has granted, I will tell her what she taught me on March 18th, 2012. "Out of the mouth of babes...."

God's faithful brown bag

So, Wednesday night I got woken up from a lovely nap with my newborn daughter to some of the worst pain I've ever experienced. After it had escalated from a 5 to a 9 on the pain scale in about 20 minutes we decided it was time for a trip to the ER. So Mom, her sweet friend and neighbor Maj and I were on our way to the ER and all the sudden I felt horribly nauseous and just knew I was going to throw up. And I did.

Ok, back up to the day before. Mom and I were running errands and decided to get a treat for Isaac while we were running around. We were throwing away our trash from the Sonic run and I couldn't find that pesky brown paper bag that all the food had come in and I was so annoyed. Where is that dumb paper bag? I thought to myself, really annoyed that I could never seem to get the car cleaned out to any level of decency. 

Well as I was leaning forward the next day and knowing that I had only seconds before I would have to completely throw up all over my car, there it was. The paper bag. And as hokey and silly as this may sound, in the midst of my pain and the chaos of the moment, the Lord was there, right there in the brown paper bag. All the sudden in the part of my brain that connects to my spirit and my soul--something registered. God is here. In the chaos, going before me in ALL the details, including this paper bag. 

My untidy loose ends are His tidy ones. His sovereign order at work in the midst of my disorder. And He is great enough to pay attention to running the universe and make sure that paper bag was where I needed it when I needed it. And if He can go before me in even this, He can go before me in the much more significant much more substantial details of this trial as well. Praise Him that His goodness condescends to the measly mundane details of our lives to prove over and over the greatness of His power.

Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide, in every change He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.