family Archives - Page 11 of 15 - Kristen Anne Glover

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Unplug {Day 18}

Welcome to our series! Find Day 1 here.

Last night, the kids and I lit the Christmas tree and turned off all the other lights in the house. We gathered candles and lit them too—a half a dozen or so scattered around the living room like fireflies. Faith and Jonathan brought two tall tapers to the table so we could have dinner in their hushed glow.

It was just the six of us, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, watching the flames and enjoying the comfort of sitting close and sharing a meal together. My children’s eyes twinkled, full of the wonder of Christmas, the enchantment of the evening, and the expectation of good things to come.

“I want to pray,” Kya said, unexpectedly. Micah’s warm little hand instinctively reached for mine and Paul put his hands over his eyes. Kya prayed right in the middle of the meal, just because she thought of something to say to God that couldn’t wait. “Thanks for making us,” she said.

It was a good prayer.

“I like this,” Jonathan said, nearly singeing his hair on the candle. All the other children smiled and nodded.

“I’m going to have a candle collection when I grow up,” Faith mused.

I watched her playing with the wax as it pooled up on the pewter candlestick like a glop of warm jam, and I was awed into silence. It takes so little to be happy. Sometimes, all it takes is a little quiet to let your ears hear what your heart is trying to speak.

But our world is far from silent. It has become ever louder with each passing generation until it seems that there is not a single place on this earth where the noise has not permeated. The average American spends nearly 5 hours a day watching television, two hours a day online, and at least an hour a day staring at a cell phone screen. Sixty-six percent of all American homes have three or more televisions, and seven out of ten homes keep the TV on during dinner. Most families have the TV on all the time, whether they are watching it or not.

There is no silence.

Our attentions are so divided, most of us multitask our media, watching TV and surfing the internet at the same time, listening to music while texting a friend and playing a Facebook game. It is no wonder we don’t enjoy our children. They are just another part of the noise.

Perhaps it’s time we unplug.

A few years ago, I made the decision to keep the TV off if my kids were awake. It was my habit to wake up and turn on the morning news shows. But I had become increasingly more aware of the fact that my children were watching what was on the screen. The programming, including scary news clips, was not meant for children. Neither were the commercials, which often sold products and services using very adult situations.

It was not an easy break. I missed it at first. But I reminded myself of this: no one ever got to the end of her life and said, “I wish I’d watched more TV.” I will not wish I’d sat on a couch more and stared at a box longer. No, I will wish I had lived my life more fully than that.

I am far from being free from the noise, however. My children will tell you that while I don’t watch TV, and I don’t own a cell phone, I do spend far too much of my day plunking away at my laptop. They know that if I am staring at the screen, they might have to ask a question two or three times before I hear them. Faith says, “Don’t you know Mommy’s in her computer trance?”

If I am not careful, I allow myself to engage more with my computer than I do with my children. I become frustrated because they are making noise and I can’t concentrate. I yell at them to stop arguing instead of getting up and going downstairs to see what’s wrong. I become annoyed when they need something from me because I am trying to work. I fill up my lap with a laptop instead of a child.

Have I really done anything better than what I was doing before? Of course not.

Enjoying my children means I must give them my full attention because I enjoy my children more when I am fully present, when they have both my ears, both my eyes, and my undivided delight. I enjoy them more when I am not attempting to multi-task my thoughts and my affections.

To do this, I must turn off the media. I have to keep the TV off, limit the times when I work or play on my computer, and let the phone go to voicemail.

Then, in the quiet, I can connect with my children. That means that when they are talking to me, I respond with my eyes. I watch their faces, not a screen. I listen with my ears to their voices, not to the TV or the music, and not texting someone at the same time. I answer with real words, not “Uh-huh.”

It is such a simple but profound difference. Your children know when you are not engaging with them. They can tell. That’s why they pat your arm and say your name over and over again when you’re busy doing something else. They want to know you are really there. They have learned that often, you are not.

Your children want all of you in their moment.

Unplug. Let the phone ring. Just because you have it with you does not mean it needs to control you. Let the texts go unanswered. Let Facebook update itself. Be unavailable today to the distractions of a noisy world and engage the people you really care about.

Today, make it a point to connect with your children in the quiet.

Unplug

Join us tomorrow for Day 19: Rest

For further thought:

1) Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13 talk about how we cannot serve two masters. We are unable to divide our affections. In the context, money is the second master, but anything can take God’s place in our hearts, including media. Does your media usage reflect the fact that you are trying to serve two masters? How is that working in your home?

2) Most people are familiar with the phrase, “A house divided cannot stand.” How is dividing your attention destructive to your family? How is it counterproductive to fill your home with sounds and images that do not reflect what you say you believe?

3) Today, keep track of how often you put your children second to media. Sometimes, it is appropriate to make them wait, but often it is not. Evaluate yourself. Are your affections divided? Are you too plugged in to a device and not as plugged in to your children as you need to be? What changes can you make to correct this problem?

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Strength {Day 17}

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

“Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist:

Give me leave to do my utmost.”

—Karen von Blixen-Finecke, Babette’s Feast

Daniel was a slight, dark-haired young man with heavy-rimmed glasses and an apologetic slouch. He had an easy but awkward smile, unusual mannerisms, and odd outbursts of energy. He was quirky and artistic, two qualities that sometimes endeared him to people, and sometimes didn’t.

Daniel was a music major, a pianist, I thought, but I had never heard him play. It was likely he had some talent because the music program was rigorous and extremely competitive. But he had none of the confidence of a man with talent. He had the rumpled look of a guy who ate cereal for dinner and didn’t bother to match his socks. Whenever I saw him plowing his way across campus alone with a bag of music slung across his shoulder, I felt a pang of pity. He was a really nice guy. It just didn’t show.

As part of his graduation requirements, Daniel had to give a concert during his senior year. It was going to be held in the chapel, and the entire student body was invited. It was Daniel’s job to promote his own concert, so I made it a point to attend along with a group of our mutual friends. We were going to be his fan club. If anyone needed a fan club, Daniel did.

The lights in the auditorium were dim when Daniel walked out on stage. It was not exactly a grand entrance. Even a tuxedo could not hide the fact that Daniel was not at home in the spotlight. He wouldn’t even look at the audience but kept his head down and his arms held rigidly at his sides as he walked to the baby grand at center stage. It hurt to watch.

Daniel attached himself to the piano bench and ran his fingers quietly over the keys like he was reminding himself that he had seen them before. I couldn’t breathe.

Then Daniel lifted his hands and the notes filled the room. No one had told me that Daniel couldn’t play the piano.

He commanded it.

The entire auditorium resounded with the music of a master. His body rocked back and forth over the keys, his own flesh owning the music. Daniel’s stiff, clammy fingers came alive like they had been waiting, dormant, for just that moment. They flew fast and hard, radiating scores of memorized Rachmaninoff until his fingers began to bleed. Daniel paused to wrap them in bright white tissues and continued to play as if he was unconscious of the hindrance or the sacrifice.

When the music stopped and the roar of cheers rose up to the roof, Daniel stood, laughing an awkward laugh, and fidgeting with his now-useless fingers. His face radiated glory. Those of us who knew and cared about him were overcome. It was as if we had just met Daniel for the very first time, as if, for a brief moment, we were allowed to see him as he was created to be. It was glorious.

When I became a mother, I felt awkward and insecure, like Daniel walking around a campus where he was always out of place. I saw other mothers thriving in their role while I languished. I felt like God had misunderstood the clay that I am and had shaped me into the wrong vessel. Every day, it was all of weakness. Every day, it was hard.

It was not all terrible, of course, but I felt like an expatriate in a foreign country. Some of the scenery was beautiful and I came to love my new home, but even as the years passed, it was pretty obvious I wasn’t a native.

Then one day, when the twins were just over a year old, my husband asked me to make a costume for an event at the school where he taught. It was such a simple thing, a costume. But to me, it was profound. I had complete creative license. I could do whatever I wanted, whatever I could think of. It was such a gift, to be able to create. In the chaos that was the first year with twins, I had not had the time to think, much less create. I felt like I was coming home, like I was standing on a stage with an instrument that could communicate my soul. I felt like myself for the first time in what seemed like forever.

For many of us, the process of becoming a mother means laying aside some of the things we are most capable of and taking on a whole bunch of weakness. It is beautiful to be weak. But it is also exhausting and discouraging because we were not made only for weakness. We were made also to be strong. It sounds like an impossible juxtaposition, but it is not. It is a mystery. It is the mystery of God and man in one. In our weakness, we identify with Christ in His humanity. In our strength, we identify with Him in His deity. The two things, weakness and strength, work together in us to complete the incredible privilege of being ambassadors of Christ in this world.

By virtue of being human, each one of us has the awesome privilege and responsibility of being image-bearers of God. We carry about in our being something of the face of God. This is seen in our desire to create and be creative, to rule and tame, to subdue and to solve. In every single one of us, God has given slivers of glory in the form of gifts and abilities that are meant to reflect His greater perfection. The more we use our gifts with godly excellence, the more clearly we reflect Him.

It is a false humility to think that we cannot use our strengths for God, or that we should somehow restrain them. Not only are those gifts meant to be used, they must be used in the most excellent way possible. They are the things that build up our family, complete the body of Christ, and fulfill us. We were meant to do the things God made us to do, and when we are given the opportunity to do those things unbounded we feel a sense of deep satisfaction and contentment.

The turning point in my mothering came when I embraced the fact that my strengths were meant to be used in conjunction with my weakness. I had put my gifts on hold, so to speak, because I was so consumed with the struggle of motherhood. It did not occur to me that the most excellent way to use my gifts was by pouring them into the home where God had placed me, in the most excellent calling of loving my children and husband.

When I unbound myself of how I thought God was going to use my strengths and began to use my strengths where God had actually called me, I found joy.

This ministry does not look like I thought it would. It is a lot stickier, and a lot more glorious, than that. Because what I thought God would do was only glory. It was only strength. But here, in this home where strength and weakness meet, the glory is very clearly not my own. My profound awkwardness testifies to the fact that any strength I have is simply a gift of God.

Amazingly, when I use my strengths to the glory of God, I get to share in the glory too. I get to stand at center stage and enjoy the opportunity to be who I was created to be. It is like having the privilege of speaking my native tongue in a foreign land. It is the enjoyment of strength in weakness.

Please join us Monday for Day 18!

For further thought:

1) Read Romans 12:6. What are we supposed to do with the gifts God has given us?

2) Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that we are God’s workmanship, created to do the good works which He ordained for us to do. Why is it sometimes hard to embrace your strengths and do the things you are best at?

3) When I am feeling most discouraged as a mother, it is usually an opportunity for strength and weakness to work. If you are having trouble enjoying your children today, first pray and seek God’s help. Then, think of ways to serve your children through your strengths. Perhaps you are good at planning activities, inventing a game, baking cookies or building a blanket fort. Do what you are good at and watch how God encourages your heart.

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!

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