One thing i love about being a mum is the fact that i can be completely myself with my kids. I mean, with Bugsy, i can dance around the lounge to 'hi-five' like a crazy woman (i don't dance - not even in front of my husband) and she is absolutely delighted. I can make up silly songs that don't rhyme or really even make sense & she thinks they are the greatest songs in the world. & we love to laugh together loudly when one of us does a particularly musical 'parp'. I love the fact that she is still young enough to think that i am amazing. She watches me as i get ready in the morning & when i'm putting on my make-up, she wants 'pretty eyes' too. She has even started using expresions like 'cool man' or 'omygosh' - phrases she has learned from me. I've heard people say that kids are like sponges. Just soaking up; absorbing, everything they see & hear. & thats the problem isn't it? A couple of weeks ago i lost my temper & yelled (i mean YELLED) at my husband & used language that precious little ears should never be subjected to. The very same mother who is always saying 'in our family we don't use loud, shouting voices', when Bugsy gets over-excited or decides to throw a tantrum. Talk about confusing. When it was all over, I apologized to my husband but i also had to apologize to Bugsy. Which brings me to these verses:
It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin - Luke 17 v 2
Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly - James 3 v 1
And as parents of little kiddies, we are their teachers. And you can talk to them about values & the right way to behave until you're blue in the face. But they learn most about what you truely value by observing you in every day life. Conversations & interactions with your friends, the way in which you relate with your husband, what you choose to watch on t.v. or listen to on the radio when they're in your presence. Or how you handle situations when the pressure is on. Those verses are pretty heavy & its HARD. For me its the times like when i'm late for an appointment & stuck on the highway behind an old biddy who is convinced that the speed limit is not 100k at all, its 50. Or when i'm in the middle of cooking tea & one kid needs their nappy changed & the other one is eating the cat food. Sometimes i feel like wretched Gollum from 'The Lord of the Rings' . . . "eyes always watching . . ." And i think it would be very tempting to just throw in the towel except for two facts. I have children who are very forgiving & a God who is unfailingly gracious, who 'arms me with strength & makes my way perfect' (Ps. 18 v 32).
I get this one - raising children shows the flaws in your own life like nothing else. I've been in need of God's strength lately. You know there are times when you can fool yourself into thinking you are doing alright and then there are times when you come face to face with the truth - that any good thing we accomplish is through God. I've been thinking a lot about finding my strength in God lately and the verse in Isaiah 40:31 about 'they that wait on the Lord renew their strength'. well I looked it up to read and in the NIV it says, 'those who hope in the Lord'. Which got me thinking.. what is hope in the Christian sense and how does that give me strength. I'm still thinking about it, but I think a lot of it is that hope is like faith.. a definite knowledge of something to come that is done and finished in God's strength. Our strength is renewed I think when our hope is in God not us
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post... thank you for being REAL. Parenting is hard- LIFE is hard and I am so thankful for a savior who is there to hold us, mold us and grow us to be more like Him every day. You are a GREAT mommy and wife. :0)
ReplyDelete