Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Forgiveness {Day 5}

Looking for the beginning of the series? Click here!

It was not the best day to go to the pumpkin patch.  The clouds hung like furrowed brows over the sullen fields.  Everything was brown, except the things that were gray, and anything that wasn’t gray was about to be because it looked like rain.

But it wasn’t raining yet, and you can’t very well stay home on a chance of rain when you live in the Pacific Northwest or you’d never go anywhere.  Besides, I wanted to fill our Saturdays with memorable activities to help pass the months while my husband was away on Army duty.

Despite the chill in the air, the kids and I donned our fleece jackets and boots and headed off.  All of us were happy to muck about in the fields and look for the craziest pumpkin.  All but one child.  One child did not want to go to the pumpkin patch, or watch cannons shoot pumpkins into the woods, or go on a hay ride.  One child chose to be sullen and mean like the clouds over the field.  One child rained all over our fun family outing.

I was not prepared for that kind of weather.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t trying so hard to make sure my children were happy and well-loved during their father’s absence.  This child was fighting against all the good I had planned for them, and it hurt.

That night, after I put the kids to bed and the house was finally still, I shut myself in to the bathroom and succumbed to the heaviness of my heart.  I felt sad and wounded.  The evidence of ugliness lingered, like a bruise on my skin.

I turned the water as hot as it would go and stepped into the shower.  It’s easier to think in the shower, and to cry.  Words tumbled out into the water, words of sorrow over these sins lurking in such a young heart.  It seemed silly at first, like it shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.  Kids do stuff like that.  I was probably being too sensitive.

But that childish choice had brought a division into our home.  It had taken the beauty of the day and marred the fellowship we shared.   It stood between my own child and me and threatened the closeness we enjoyed.  It wasn’t just immaturity.  It was sin, and I hated that it was here, in my home, in my child.  In me.

It was the same old struggle in new flesh.  How I wish I could have spared him from this awful inheritance!

So there, in my little earthly temple, I pleaded to God for forgiveness for the one whose heart had been so hard that day.  “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy…”

The bitterness of the day vanished.  I found myself called to the place of Christ, not as a servant, but as a faithful high priest, earnestly interceding to God on behalf of my children.  It was as if I was standing in the gap between my children and God, clothed in Christ, asking for forgiveness for their weaknesses.  In the pattern of Christ, who prays for me, I prayed for my children as one who understands them and loves them.  I know them because they are mine.

It is an awesome thing to be a kingdom of priests, and nowhere is the reality of that calling more pronounced than when I come before the throne of God on behalf of my covenant child.  How I understand their weaknesses!  How I desire for their good, for their reconciliation to their Father!  When I grieve for the sins of my children, who often are unable yet to grieve for them themselves, it moves the heart of God.

It moves mine as well.  It is difficult to enjoy a child who hurts, offends, and disobeys.  It is hard to want to be around a child who selfishly ruins a perfectly good day by his actions or attitudes.  Even a very small person can inflict a great deal of pain.

But when I take on a ministry of reconciliation and stand in as a priest for my children, I am reminded that their offenses—as hurtful or annoying as they may be to me— are ultimately sins against God.  They are not just childish rebellions to be dismissed.  They are real sins with eternal consequences.   When my toddler refuses to obey, it is sin.  When my daughter treats her siblings harshly, it is sin.  When my son lies, it is sin.

What an awful reality.  Speaking the truth of it back to God and asking for forgiveness acknowledges the fact that my children are sinners in need of repentance.  Hearing the words spoken brings my awareness into the situation.  I cannot ignore their weaknesses when I am confessing them aloud.

It is a truth that turns my heart for my children back to God and renews my purpose to teach and train them in the way they should go because I know the consequences of sin.  I am weak!  I am prone to wander just as they are.  I see their weakness and I have compassion on them.  I understand.

But I also know the solution to the problem.  That is the beauty of the priestly role.  It allows me the opportunity to point my children to Christ, the true High Priest, the true Sacrifice.  Struggling with my children’s sin is one of the hardest parts of parenting.  But leading them to the Source of all forgiveness is truly the greatest joy.

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.
1 John 2:12

Thank you for reading!  Please join us tomorrow for Day 6: Discipline. 

For further thought

1) Have you thought about yourself as a priest as we are called in 1 Peter 1:9?  Why or why not?

2) How is your role as a priest different than Christ’s role as a priest?  How is it similar?  See Hebrews 4:14-5:10.

3) Can you have a ministry of reconciliation in your home if you are harboring bitterness or taking offense at the sins of your children?  How can t help to recognize that their sins are ultimately sins against God?

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Priority {Day 3}

Just joining us? You will find Day 1 of the series here.

Last year, a man with a couple of kids moved in with the woman in the green house up the street.  The kids, who introduced themselves as Chance and Hailey, had been living with their dad and a couple of older half-brothers until their dad met Sandy.  They told us their dad was going to marry her, and they started calling her mom.  They had never had a mom before so they tossed the word around their lips like something sacred.

But we could hear the yelling down the street.  We saw Chance and Hailey standing on the sidewalk while words that should never be spoken were shouted into the air.  They sneaked into our yard and hung around the apple tree and asked us what we were having for lunch.  Sometimes, when I asked if they had already eaten at their house, Chance would shrug and say, “We’re not allowed to go home ‘cause Mom—our mom—is cleanin’.”

One day, Hailey came running up to me, tears streaming down her face.  She had a bright red spot on her knee.  “I need a Band-aid!” she wailed.  It wasn’t a terrible scrape, for all her carrying on, but it was bleeding, and the blood was getting all over her clothes.

“I can get you a Band-aid,” I said, “but I think it’s better if you go home so you can get cleaned up.”

“I already went home!” Hailey bawled.  “My mom told me I couldn’t come in because I’d get blood on the carpet!”

I stared in disbelief at the green house up the street.  I had already known the children were not a priority, but to hear it like that hurt.  I hurt for the children, but also hurt for Sandy.  I guess I understood, a little.  I wished I didn’t, but my heart is deep and full of shadows and I know something of selfishness.

Like her, I have traded my joy for my children for the tyranny of the moment.  I have been angry when muddy feet tramped all over my freshly-mopped floor.  I have been too busy making dinner to be bothered with one more scraped knee.  I have gotten my children dressed for church while yelling at them because we’re late.

I know the cost of mixed-up priorities, and it weighs on my heart.  I want more for my children than that.  I want more for me than that.

But it is so easy, when my toes are in the dirt and my hands busy about the stuff of earth, to forget that this is not my kingdom.  It is easy to forget that almost everything I do here doesn’t really matter at all, at least, not the way I think it does.  When I am dead and gone my kids will not care if the living room was tidy or not, nor will they remember most of the things that I did.  What they will remember is if they were loved.

Love must always be my priority.  It is the thing that outlasts all my doings.  It is not the capstone on my list of achievements; it is the cornerstone.  If I do not have love, nothing I do matters, and I am no better than the woman in the green house up the street who worries more about her carpet than the heart of her child.

Love must permeate everything I do in my home, and my priority must be this: to wake up every day with the intention to live out my faith through love in front of my children.

This does not mean that the to-do list doesn’t get done.  It means that love drives the to-do list.  Love determines what is the best thing to be done.  Love keeps my eyes on eternity and asks the hard questions about what my children really need.

It is the simplest and hardest thing.  Love can’t fit into a box and be checked off.  It can’t be measured the way stacks of folded laundry can.  This priority requires me to seek wisdom, to understand the unique needs of my children, and to give up a false perfectionism.

Some moments, the best way to love my children might be doing the laundry.  Other times, it might mean listening, correcting destructive behaviors, giving them time to recharge, or grabbing them in a great big hug.

Always, it means pressing in to the Author of Love because I cannot give what I do not have.  I must hold fast to the truth that God’s plan for me is better than any plan or purpose I have for myself.  The children He has entrusted to me are a gift, not a duty, and I will have no greater honor in this life than if my children can say they knew the love of God because of how I loved them.  That is more important than an immaculate kitchen or being on time for soccer practice because that is the stuff of eternity.

And nothing impacts eternity more than love.

Love is the stuff of eternity

For further thought

1) 1 Corinthians 13 is a famous chapter on love.  What does it have to say about works done without love?

2) If you are like me, reading through the attributes of love can be like reading through a list of failures.  I obviously, continuously, and outrageously mess up love.   Which aspect of love is hardest for you?

3) Read 1 John 4:7-11.  What is the source of all love?  What are your actions toward your children saying about what you believe about God?

4) My prayer for you today comes from Philippians 1:9-11: “I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

Join us on Monday for Day 4: Sacrifice.

 

 

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Perspective {Day 2}

New to the series? Find Day 1 here.

These are the peanut butter and jam-filled days, when young children fill your home and occupy your time.  There are sticky fingers and sticky floors and sticky jam in your hair.  But there are also sandwiches that taste like warm summer berries and sunshine, and you can spread out your blanket and stay awhile, if you want.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

Either you can get bogged down in the sticky mess of smeared jam or you can taste the sweetness of the berries.  It’s just that simple.  Perspective is the way you view your circumstances, and perspective has a lot to do with whether you enjoy your children—or not.

Some days, when my eyes are on my to-do list and my mind is filled with thoughts of how much happier I’d be if my circumstances changed, the inconveniences of motherhood get to me.  I think about my idealized, glossy-magazine view of motherhood (which has never materialized), and I wonder if I have been cheated, somehow.  Surely, it has to be better than this.

On those selfish, bitter days, I do not enjoy my children.  It’s hard to enjoy them when secretly, in the depths of my heart, I view the circumstances of motherhood as an obstacle to More Important Stuff.  The toddler’s tantrums keep me from getting More Important Stuff done.  The Princess who unpacks her entire dresser looking for the tutu that was in the wash destroys the More Important Stuff I’ve already done.  The twins’ fighting over a toy prevents me from carrying on a phone conversation with the More Important Person and the endlessly misplaced shoes keep me from getting to More Important Places on time.

From this perspective, it seems the whole of motherhood is an obstacle to my happiness: one big, sticky, jam-filled obstacle.

But other days, I remember that my goal in life is not to be happy.  Or organized.  Or on time.  It is to be holy.  To that end, God has orchestrated every circumstance of every day for my own good, to draw me nearer to Himself and to change me into His likeness.  Every circumstance has my refinement in mind, even motherhood.  Especially motherhood.

Because it is in motherhood that I have the opportunity not only to be like Christ, but to demonstrate Christ to my children.  Day after day, under this roof with these children, I have the opportunity to be Jesus passing out the leftovers, Jesus holding babies and breaking up arguments, Jesus washing stinky feet, Jesus who is never too busy to be touched, never too busy to be needed.  I even have the opportunity to be Jesus, filled with power and overcoming this world of spilled milk and spaghetti stains, if I let him.

From this perspective, there are no obstacles.  There is nothing mundane, nothing insignificant, nothing lost.  There is nothing beneath me than was farther beneath Christ.  If I stoop at all, it is to stoop to be where He is, down in the dirt struggling with the dailyness of the cross.  It changes how I look at my circumstances.  It changes me.

When I understand that I can show Christ more by wiping sticky jam off sticky faces than I ever could by living a glossy mothering magazine life, I find contentment.   I find joy, and I am able to enjoy my children.  They are not inconveniences or obstacles to my happiness.  They are a daily opportunity for   me to clothe the Word of God in flesh—my flesh.  They are a daily opportunity for me to rise above my circumstances and live out in real actions—my actions—what love really is.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

Hello, Mom!  My name is Opportunity.

 

For further thought

1)      How does the humility of Christ transform your view of your circumstances?  Read Philippians 2:1-16.

2)      Can God be more glorified in the humble acts of motherhood than in the perfectionism we seek?  Consider 2 Corinthians 4:5-18 as it applies to the ministry of motherhood.  How would your home change if you considered every circumstance of every day as an opportunity to clothe the truth of God in your flesh?

3)      As you go about your day today, may you be strengthened by this prayer of the apostle Paul, which is also my prayer for you: “[May] you  be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” –Colossians 1:9b-12

 

Please join us tomorrow for Day 3: Priorities.