Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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!

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Tattling {Day 14}

Welcome to our series! Find Day 1 here.

I don’t remember the events of the day.  They were so insignificant in and of themselves.  But after a whole day of minor catastrophes, broken rules and bad behaviors, I had reached my limit.  Frustration bubbled right under the surface.  By 4:30, when I heard my husband pull in the driveway, I was ready to pop.  He opened the door, smiled, and said, “Hey, how was your day?”

It was the wrong thing to say.

The very sight of his face was like an open invitation to release all the negative emotions I’d been harboring all day.  In capital letter phrases, I spewed frustration and irritation all over him.  There was The Incident at the Grocery Store Which Will NEVER Happen Again and the Diaper Malfunction of Epic Proportion and the Tantrum Heard ‘Round the World.  There were No Naps and Potty Training Mishaps and Biting.

Yes, Biting.  I paused for a moment so my husband could feel appropriately sorry for me.  Also, he needed to hang up his coat.

While I waited, I thought of a few other things I had failed to mention.  The very thought of those injustices caused my heart to beat faster.  The imprint of anger lingered though the offenses should have been forgotten.

“Maybe we should talk about this later,” my husband said.  He didn’t sound at all sorry for me.  Exasperated, I turned around.  There behind me, listening with eyes wide, were my three oldest children.  They had been there the whole time.  They were standing right there when I recounted their sins to their daddy, listening to me tattling about their bad behavior and our awful day, listening while I vomited grievances I said I’d forgiven.

No one had to tell me I was wrong.  I knew it the minute I saw them.  I knew it too late.

Parenting can be downright frustrating.  But that gives me no right to air my frustrations to anyone who will listen.  It does not give me the right to hold on to anger until my husband gets home and I have a chance to “vent.”  It does not give me the right to keep a record of wrongs and apply forgiveness retroactively after I’ve had a chance to update my Facebook status with my current hardships.

Love requires me to treat my kids with more respect that.

“Love keeps no record of wrongs.”  How I struggle with that some days!  If I don’t keep a record of wrongs, I can’t exact the sympathy I want from my husband who gets to work with adults all day.  I can’t earn a friend’s pity, and no one is going to tell me I deserve to indulge myself in a bubble bath unless they know how hard I have it.

“Love believes the best.”  It also shows the best.  It seeks to build up, not tear down.  The things I say about my children or post on Facebook should always be the best things there are to say.  In our culture, it only takes a second to post a reproachful comment about your child for hundreds of people to see.  It only takes a second to send a tattling text or dial up a friend on the phone so you can vent about the kids you have buckled up in the back seat while you cruise down the carpool lane.

Social media and cell phones were not invented so we can tattle on our kids.  It is the equivalent of reciting all their wrongs while they stand there listening just so we can gain some sympathy for ourselves.  It is an unequal exchange, and the child always loses.

It all comes down to this: there is never a parenting concern so important it requires me to address it publicly unless I am trying to decide whether or not to take one of them to the ER.  Love airs praises in public and addresses concerns in private.  Love does not tattle. 

Someday, my children will be old enough to read my Facebook history.  I want them to feel loved by what they read, not betrayed.  Right now, they are old enough to hear what I say about them to Daddy, Nana, and the moms I meet for play dates.  Right now, they are listening.  What they hear me say about them will tell them whether I am a follower of Christ or a fraud.

What they hear will tell them if I believe what I say or not.  If I say I know love but sacrifice their reputations for the temporary consolation of a friend, I do not know love.  I say I know forgiveness, but if I harbor far lesser offenses than have been forgiven of me, then I do not know forgiveness at all.

Here I am, a harlot with a wandering heart.  Yet I have been bought by the blood of Christ, washed, forgiven, and redeemed.  God has every right to boast of His goodness in contrast to my darkness.  He has every right to list my offenses in the heavens for all to see.  But He does not.  He stands before the world and calls me His Bride.  His Chosen One.  His Beloved.  His Child.

My Father delights in me.  I think part of that delight comes from the fact that He does not simply forgive my sins; He forgets them.  He enjoys me because He chooses to let go of the things that divide us.   It is a kind of love that does not tattle.  It does not traipse my bad stuff out in public for all the world to see.  It does not even rehash it in the living room or at the dinner table.  Love allows forgiveness to be the end of the story.

When I tattle on my children and air their offenses in public, I do not feel better.  I taste the bitterness of anger.  I rekindle my desire for retribution and at least a full pound of flesh.  I feel slighted because their little “I’m sorry” is incapable of recognizing how much I’ve been wronged.  I cannot delight in my children when I continually cut into the same wound.

Enjoying my children requires me to demonstrate the kind of love and forgiveness I have been shown.  If I say I know love, it must be my Father’s kind of love.  If I say I know forgiveness, it must be His kind of forgiveness.  That is the stuff that binds my heart to theirs and allows me to enjoy them as part of this beautiful redemption.

That is the kind of stuff that is worthy of a Facebook status update.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Please join us tomorrow for Day 15: Fear

For further thought

1) In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul encourages us to build each other up.  Listen to the words you say to and about your children today.  Are they edifying?  Do they build up or tear down?

2) May our prayer today echo King David’s in Psalm 19:14: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart [and the things I post on Facebook] be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.”  Pray that simple line whenever you feel tempted to tattle on your children today.

3) Activity: Make it your objective to remember the best and funniest things your kids do all day.  Write them down (see my Quote Wall for an example), post them on Facebook, and share them with your spouse over the dinner table instead of all the bad things.  How does this change your heart for your children?  Do you find yourself enjoying them more?

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: The Good {Day 12}

New here? Click here to start at the beginning of the series.

Based on the roar coming up from the downstairs bedroom, someone had to be dying.  Except that I was pretty sure people die more quietly than that.  Someone was being torn limb from limb or was being eaten by a wild beast.

Or.

Or, one of my twins had a toy the other twin wanted.  Sure enough, a peek downstairs revealed Paul flailing on the floor while Micah played nearby, contentedly pushing a “weally, weally cool” Matchbox car, oblivious to his brother’s agony.

“MI-CAHhhhHHhhhhHHHHhhhhh!”  Paul wailed.  “I WANT THAT CAR!”

“Hum,” Micah said.

Great.  Here we go, I thought.  We have a million Matchbox cars and they have to fight over the same one?

Paul gritted his teeth, making the little dimple under his eye stand out.  “Arrrrrrrrrrgh!” he said through clenched jaw.  His frustration was palpable, probably because he was biting his tongue.

Micah looked at the prized car in his hand.  “Hum,” he said again.  Then, he shrugged his shoulders and handed the car to Paul.  What. Just.  Happened?

“Micah!” I said, stunned.  Even Paul looked stunned.  “Micah, you shared!”  Micah grinned sheepishly.

I had practically given up on the fact that those boys would ever share anything but flu germs.  It seems to me that I spend an unthinkable amount of time breaking up arguments and reminding them how not to act like savages.

Then God gave me that moment.  It stood out in the middle of our mess like a giant orange construction sign that read “God at Work.”

God was at work in my children!  Who would’ve thought.  Sometimes, I think the construction project has stalled out and we’re not making any progress.  Haven’t we been over the sharing thing a bazillion times?  And why do you still pick your nose?  Can’t we be done with that nasty habit already?

There are days when I feel a little bit like an Israelite, wandering around in the same sand pit year after year after year.  For forty years, Israel didn’t seem to be getting anywhere either.  They weren’t, as a matter of fact.  And even though God provided for all their needs in the most astonishing ways, they didn’t really notice.  Most of the time, they just grumbled and complained about all the things that weren’t going right.

But God was at work that entire time.  When they finally reached the Promised Land, a big, nasty river stood in their way.  So God parted the waters of the Jordan just like He had parted the waters of the Red Sea, and Israel walked over on dry ground.

I bet the Israelites noticed that.  They had seen that before, far away in Egypt when God redeemed them out of slavery.  It was like a great exclamation point on the end of forty years of discouragement.  He had been working all along.  He had been faithful all along.

Before they could even go about collecting some of that much longed-for milk and honey and enjoy the fruit of the promise, God told them to get back into the mud of that riverbed and dig up 12 stones.  Why?  Because God wanted them to set up the stones as a reminder.  He wanted them to remember not how relieved they were when they finally got there, but how the mighty hand of God had been at work the entire time.

There will be times with your children when it seems like you’re wandering around in circles.  But God is at work.  The problem is that we tend to focus on what our kids do wrong rather than what God is doing right.  We get discouraged because they are so far from where they need to be.  We forget to notice how far they’ve come.

When Jonathan was little, he had an issue with lying.  Everything that child said was a lie, even if the lie didn’t benefit him at all.  If you asked him, “Jonathan, is your name Jonathan?”  he would answer “No.”  It was that bad.

My husband and I worked and worked and worked with him on it for years.  Years.  We couldn’t understand why he did it, and we couldn’t get him to stop.  Every time Jonathan told a lie, I felt like I had just taken another lap around the desert.  Here we are again, fighting the same old losing battle.

Then one day, Jonathan told me the truth.  But I didn’t notice it that day.  He told me the truth again, and I still didn’t notice.  Finally, one day, Jonathan looked at me and said, “Mom!  I’m telling you the truth!”

Sure enough, he was.  I hadn’t noticed because it was gone, out of my sight.  God had taken it away, and I had already moved on to some other habit to break him of.

“Jonathan,” I said, “do you know what this means?”

He shook his head.

“This means God has been working in your heart!”

His eyes got big, and mine got teary.

“That is a good thing!  He has been working in your heart to help you not to lie.  Isn’t that awesome?”

God was at work.  Behind the scenes, where I didn’t always notice, God was doing what God does: changing hearts, convicting of sin, drawing my children near to Himself and bestowing grace upon them as members of His covenant family.  That is a work I cannot do, and when I see it happening, I need to grab onto it like a big old rock and set it up in my mind so I don’t forget, so I am not like Israel, grumbling under the blessings.

If you want to enjoy your children more, notice the good that God is doing.  Rejoice when you see the hand of God in the lives of your children.  Dig up some stones, even if you have to look long and hard for them, so you are always reminding yourself of the good.  Even when you can’t see it, the truth remains: God is at work. 

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13

Please join us on Monday for Day 13: Affirmation.  This post goes hand-in-hand with today’s post, so don’t miss it! 

For further thought:

1)      Philippians 4:8 says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”  What happens when you take that Scripture to heart and put it into practice in your parenting?

2)      Make a list of all the ways you’ve seen God work in your family in the past week.  Name each child and give specific instances of how God has been faithful to work in his or her heart.  Remind yourself of it throughout the day.

3)      Read the account of Israel crossing the Jordan in Joshua 3:5-4:24.  Why did God tell them to go back into the river and pick up 12 stones?  What were the stones supposed to remind them of?