Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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. 

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Foolishness {Day 1}

When I am old, I will be the kind of woman who smiles at young mothers and tells them to enjoy their babies.  I will tell them to hug their children tight, laugh more, and worry less.  I will not forget that parenting is hard, and I will not be so foolish as to tell a mother with a screaming two-year-old that she will miss these days.

But when I am old, I will remember that I did not always enjoy my children, and I will wish I had.  I will remember that some days, I thought it was enough that my children were loved.  It was enough that they were cared for.  It was enough that we made it through the day and I had not yet been committed to an asylum.

I will remember that in my heart, I was jealous of my husband who could walk in the door from work and wrestle children without any thought to whether they’d be too wound up to go to sleep.  I was envious of the grandmas and great-aunts and darling old neighbors who could simply be with my children without any thought to what had to be done.

I will remember that I acted as if enjoying my children was a nice “extra.”  But it wasn’t always as important as the laundry.

When I am old, I will have learned that enjoying my children is not an extra.  It is essential.  It is transformative.  It is powerful, and it cannot wait until they are older and it is easier.

Still, I have been a young mother, and I know that words like this from an old woman are not always welcome.  A young mother will think it is hard enough to keep up with all the demands of motherhood without having to like it, too.  It is hard enough to get through some days without completely losing it; the idea of enjoying the children in the midst of the mess is unfathomable.

But when I am old, I will have learned that this is exactly the point.  Anyone can enjoy her children when it is easy.  Anyone can smile when the family photos are being snapped.  I certainly did that much.  But to enjoy a child who is cold and distant, who can never seem to obey, or who just makes the messes messier…that is foolishness.

It is a foolishness that captures the hearts of our children and breathes the aroma of Christ into our homes.  It is a foolishness that gives real hands and feet to love and chases insecurities away.  It is a foolishness that raises motherhood from an out-of-fashion role to a means by which the world can see the very image of God.

There is something other-worldly beautiful about a mother who delights in her children.  It smacks of the self-sacrifice and unconditional love we hear so much about but rarely see.  In that simple, flesh-defying act of enjoying her children, a mother demonstrates the very heart of God for His own.

It is hard.  It is foolish.  It is glorious.

When I am an old woman, I will remember that I didn’t always enjoy my children the way I should have.  But by the grace of God, I learned.

This is the introduction to our new series, 30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More.  Please join us tomorrow as we jump into the practical side of enjoying your children more.  Coming up, Day 2: Perspective.