30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Weakness {Day 16}

Looking for Day 1? Find it here.

It all started because the kids wanted flashlights so they could read in bed.  I was hesitant at first.  Sure, flashlights are fun and reading is commendable, but I balked at the idea of giving my kids anything that required batteries.  I knew what would happen.  They would forget to turn the lights off before falling asleep and the batteries would be dead by morning.  I imagined ourselves going through dozens of coppertops in the first week alone.

Then I found a solution: hand-crank flashlights.  It was a brilliant concept.  The batteries were kid-powered.  All the kid had to do was use some of his boundless energy to turn a handle on the flashlight and the light would come on.  No batteries required!

We added them to the kids’ Christmas lists.

On Christmas morning, both Faith and Jonathan received flashlights.  But someone had read the memo wrong because Faith’s flashlight did not have a crank.  It was solar-powered.

A solar flashlight?  Hadn’t we heard jokes about solar flashlights?  I took it out of the package and placed it in the dim light of a cloudy windowsill to charge.  I didn’t expect much.  There is no sun in Seattle.  There’s just high cloud cover.  It would be a miracle if the thing charged.  I hoped she wouldn’t be too disappointed.

That night, we could hear Jonathan frantically winding his flashlight.  When he pushed a button, a soft light came out.  It was nice.  But it didn’t last very long because he was too little to turn the handle fast enough or long enough to power up the battery.  Pretty soon, he was trotting upstairs to ask for help.  Daddy gave it a whirl.  So did I.  We wound that thing until our arms hurt.  The light was brilliant then, but it lasted less than half-an-hour before it slowly dimmed to nothing.

Faith took her flashlight off the windowsill, pushed the button, and BAM!  Her room was filled with a radiant light that lasted far into the night.  I couldn’t believe it!  She snuggled into bed, happy as could be.  Hours later, when I went in to check on her, the flashlight was still shining strong beside her while she slept.

We discovered that even on the cloudy days, the brightness of the sun was able to permeate the atmosphere and charge that little flashlight.  On the sunny days, the battery got super-charged and lasted for days.  All Faith had to do was remember to put her flashlight on her windowsill and every night, she had light.

No matter how hard Jonathan cranked his flashlight, he simply could not compete with Faith.  He gave it a valiant effort but eventually, the crank broke off.  The flashlight couldn’t be charged without the crank, so we had to throw it away.

The weakness of Faith’s flashlight was that it was completely dependent on the sun to operate.  The weakness of Jonathan’s was that it was completely dependent on human strength to operate.  At first, we thought Faith’s flashlight was the weaker of the two, but its dependency on the sun turned out to be its greatest strength.  The other’s dependency on human power ended up being its greatest downfall.

As mothers, we are like lights in our home.  Our ministry is that of shining the light of the gospel so those around us can see the face of Christ.  The question is, which kind of light are we?

Too often, I am like the hand-powered flashlight.  I get up in the morning and I do my best to power through my day because I somehow think that my dim little light can offer something to the sun.  I think it is more commendable if I can do it myself. 

I go about my day, whirling away at that incompetent handle trying to get enough energy to do the dishes and the laundry.  Heaven help me if someone needs extra help with math because I’ll have to crank a little longer to get through that.  I know I should be brighter and my light should shine farther, especially on the days when my kids are sick or things don’t go well, so I crank all the harder.  But all I get is exhaustion.  Life as a crank flashlight is not enjoyable.

It is also not a picture of the gospel.  That kind of light is not the light of Christ.  It is the light of Kristen, and it is dim by comparison.   It is a gospel of works, which is no gospel at all.  When I behave that way, I am showing my children that when life gets hard or overwhelming, the thing to do is to power through on your own strength, to strive for perfectionism whatever the cost, and to “Keep calm and carry on!”

Even if you have to ditch the calm part, at least carry on.

What a different thing it is when I am more like the solar flashlight, when the kids come down and find me reading my Bible even though there’s a pile of dishes in the sink and I haven’t gotten out of my sweats.  What a difference it would be if, instead of powering through a math lesson, I said, “You know what?  I’m getting frustrated.  Let me take a few minutes to pray.”  What if, when I am sad or overwhelmed, I don’t plaster a fake smile on my face but I let my kids see that the thing to do in situations like that is to tap into the power I have available to me in Christ.

What a beautiful, powerful light that would be!  They would see that their mother is nothing but an empty vessel, filled up with Christ.  I am like a solar flashlight.  I have no power on my own.  I have no light apart from the Son.

That is what my children need to see and hear from me because that is truth.  If I try to minister to them out of strength, I am selling them the lie of self-sufficiency.  The truth of the matter is that my children do not need to see that I can get it all done and keep it all together.  What my children need to see more than anything is that I can’t.  And neither can they.

Weakness is going to be their lot in life, just as much as it is mine.   Not one of my children will ever reach perfection.  Ever!  The best they can hope for is to be somewhat successful.  But even if they are successful by the world’s standards, their lives will be marked with failure.  Clay is weak, and we are clay.  They will be discouraged, overwhelmed, frustrated, defeated, and a myriad of other things that can’t be powered through by human strength.

When I depend on Christ, my kids get to see the solution to all the weaknesses they’ll have to face in their lives.  They will be witness to the fact that the only source of strength is Christ alone.  In that truth, I can rest and enjoy my children, confident of the fact that the very smallest amount of Christ’s work on my behalf is worth far more than I could ever do on my own.  If I have done nothing more than been a weak vessel for His glorious light to shine through, I have done enough.  May we all choose to be that kind of vessel today.

Please join us tomorrow for Day 17: Strength

For further thought

1) Read 2 Corinthians 4:5-7.  Are you preaching yourself to your children, or Christ?

2) Based on the passage above, why is it so important to embrace weakness?  What can we show in our weakness that is impossible to show in our strength?

3) Be intentional about sharing your weaknesses with your children today, but only if you are committed to allowing Christ to fill up what is lacking in you.  Take the time to pray when frustrated, read the Bible when you are tired, or praise when you feel afflicted.  Let your children see how powerful weakness can be!