Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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?

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Praise {Day 11}

Welcome to our series! Find Day 1 here.

The outer gates had already been locked for the night when the doorbell sounded.  The five of us looked at each other, startled by the interruption.  A second ring quickly echoed the first, followed by a frantic pounding on the gate.  Something was wrong.

The missionaries I was visiting rushed to the entry.  They found one of their parishioners standing under the street lamp, tears running down his face.  His fourteen-year-old daughter had run away from home.  Mario and his family had been searching for hours, but they could not find her.  Now night was falling on the streets of Mexico City, and despair was rising.

We gathered back inside and began to pray.  Members of the small house church began to arrive, pressing themselves into the circle and taking up the burden that was too much for any one of us to bear.  Fear reigned.  We all knew what could happen to a girl who gambled with a night on the streets.

Then someone started to sing a song of praise.  It was almost as shocking as a doorbell sounding in the middle of the night—praise in the midst of despair, praise in the midst of fear, praise when it was hard to be thankful at all.  “Tu fidelidad es grande, tu fidelidad incomparable es…”

Your faithfulness is great,

Your faithfulness is incomparable.

Something in the room began to change.  Our focus shifted from the hopelessness of the situation to the awesome sovereignty of God.  Hope began to drive out fear.  Light began to penetrate the darkness.  It was as if God came down to meet us there and turned the bitter stuff of earth into holy ground.

It took my breath away.  Never had I seen praise used like that before.  In my experience, praise was mostly confined to Sunday mornings or an occasional “Way to go, God!” when something particularly great happened.  But praise in the midst of darkness?  Praise for despair?  Praise when there was so much to ask for?  That was new.

The psalmist said “God inhabits the praises of His people.”  (Psalm 22:3)  I had never seen that verse come alive like I did that night in a small house in a barrio of a dark city.

When we praise God, God fills up our praises, dwells in them, and reigns on them.  Darkness cannot stay in a room filled with praise—it has to flee to make room for God to come down.  When we lift our lips to praise, God bends to receive it.  He comes into the midst of us.

If God is here in my midst, then this place where I am standing, this Mexican house or this home filled with sippy cups and board books, of broken promises and heartache—this is holy ground.  Neither Satan nor any of his mercenaries can stand on holy ground.  The darkness that threatens to undo me must go.

Some days, I feel too broken to praise.  Then I remember praise is God’s gift to the broken.  It is an anecdote to the hopeless.  It is power to those who have no advocate because it speaks the very essence of God into darkness.

Perhaps that is why King David spent so much time lifting holy hands in praise.  His wasted his best years running for his life.  His beloved friend died.  Two of his sons died.  His daughter was raped.  He had blood all over his hands.

Yet no one in the Bible praised God as much as David.  In the middle of the desert, in the dark of a cave, with enemies all around him, David had faith, and David found holy ground.

How I need God to come down on the days when I don’t feel any joy for my calling or any delight in my children!  How I need to praise Him.

Not just thank Him—praise Him.  The two words are not the same, and they do not hold the same power.  It is the difference between saying, “Thanks for the pie!” and “You make the best pie.”  One is thanks.  The other is praise.

Thanks, or thanksgiving, is temporal.  It can be new every day just like the mercies of God.  And it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord!  We should always acknowledge His gifts to us.  But one day, all the gifts will have been given, and all that is lacking in us will have been filled up.  There will no longer be any need.

But when the needs have all been met, and the thanks have ceased, the praises will have just begun.  Praise is eternal.  It is not temporal because it acknowledges the unchanging attributes of God.  Praise affirms and proclaims God’s character.  It says something about Him, not just what He has done but who He is.

That is what we were created for, not just to respond to God, but to recognize and declare the truth about God even before His hand moves to bless us.  That makes praise an offering of faith.  When we praise God, we are saying, “Though I have not seen you, I know you.”  Thanks is remembering.  Praise is believing.

When we step out in faith and praise God even when our circumstances make it difficult, God always meets us there. 

Do you want to enjoy your children more, even when it is difficult?  Do you want God in your living room, giving you strength in the midst of the struggle?

Praise Him.

Please join us for Day 12: Focus on the Good

For further thought

1) Open your Bible to Psalms.  How far do you have to read before you come to a command to praise?

2) How can thanks become man-centered?  Why can praise never be man-centered?

3) Activity: The next time you or your kids are particularly cranky, put on some praise music and dance!  Did God meet you there?

30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Avoidance {Day 9}

The beginning is a great place to start! Click here for Day 1.

 

The days turned into weeks, which turned into months, but still there was no rain.  The entire landscape looked like it had been filmed through a dusty lens.  Even the clouds wore an odd orange hue as if the  earth had risen up to beg for the waters of heaven.

But there wasn’t any.

Slowly the river sank into the earth and the ground beneath it cracked open, choking for more.  The town was forced to ration what was left of the water in the reservoir.  Every day, the faucet turned on for a few precious minutes.  My brother and I waited by the spigot, and when the water came on, we filled everything we could think of as quickly as we could before it shut off again.

With only a limited supply, water ruled our thoughts and controlled our actions.  We were careful how much we drank, used the bare amount necessary for bathing or dishes, and even saved the dirty water for flushing toilets.  Difficult decisions had to be made, like which plants to save and which plants to let die under the incessant sun.

It was unthinkable—absolutely unthinkable—to use the water for anything but necessities.  Imagine if I used some of it to wash the car or water the lawn!  It would not happen.  If I wasted the water like that, my family might run out of water to drink.  Every drop had to be reserved for the most precious purposes because when it was gone, we couldn’t get more.

Eventually, the drought ended and water became commonplace again.  But I often think back to that season as a parallel to this season of my life as a mother.  It is a little bit of a drought time, in the sense that I have many needs to meet and very limited resources.  Every day, I have only so much time and energy, and there is no way to get more.

I forget this sometimes and try to do too much.  I say yes to things without considering that there’s only so much of me to go around.  That leads to stress and anxiety and negatively effects my attitude and behaviors toward my children and spouse.

It starts off innocently enough.  I say yes to hosting a playgroup at my house.  But then I also say yes to making three dozen triple chocolate cupcakes for a bake sale and yes to having the youth group over for a BBQ and yes to making a meal for a sick friend and yes to trimming my neighbor’s hedge.  Then somewhere between scrubbing toilets and making frosting my child asks me to read a book and I snap.  “Please just leave me alone so I can get this done.  Don’t you see I’m busy?”

It’s like pouring a whole day’s worth of water out on the grass.  Sure, a playgroup is nice.  Cupcakes are tasty.  Clean toilets are more than just a nicety.  But none of those things deserves first place in my life.  None of those things is worth being impatient, irritated, or unloving toward my children.

If you ask me, I will say my priority is to love God and then my family.  I may even believe it.  But if I am giving away the best parts of myself to secondary people and purposes, I am deceiving myself.

I cannot enjoy my children when I am piecing myself out to please or serve other priorities.  Quite the contrary.  When I am spread too thin, I find myself pushing them aside so I can put on a good show, make myself look good, or please the people who will reward me with affirmation and instant fulfillment.  Because let’s be honest, “That pie looks great, Kristen!” sounds a whole lot better than, “His piece is bigger than mine!”

Often, when given the choice between things that must be done, I do not choose to serve my children first.  I serve them last.  I pour myself into the secondary things because it pampers my pride.  People appreciate me.  They affirm me.  They actually say thanks.  It is the same old sin we humans have struggled with since the dawn of time.

When I put the secondary things first, my family loses.  It’s like watering the lawn with the little bit of water we have left to drink, and it is wrong.

One of the most essential things I can do to enjoy my children more is to realize I am limited.  There is only so much of me to go around and a myriad of “good things” to entice me away from my true calling.  I will never be lacking in heart-wrenching causes, fulfilling relationships, or even sacrificial ministries that compete for my affections.

That’s where the word avoidance comes in.   As parents, we must avoid committing to anything that depletes us of the emotional and physical energy our priority requires.  We must avoid giving ourselves away bit by bit to all the “little things”—even good things!—that slowly drain our resources.

Think of your emotional and physical resources like something tangible, like a precious bucket of water.  Every day, you get one bucket and no more.  You can spend it however you want, but once it’s gone, it’s gone.  Any needs that come up after it’s used up simply won’t be met until new rations are given out.

Some expenditures are unavoidable.  We all have to feed our children, some of us have to work, we might have elderly parents to care for, etc.  But most other activities and relationships are choices that impact our quality of life and our ability to love and enjoy our children.  If you pour out your energy on all those good things, you will not have enough left for your family.

It’s important, especially during this very short but intense season of our lives when our children are still at home, that we avoid this temptation.  We must conserve the best of what we have for them.  Our priority deserves more than just the leftovers.

That means avoiding consuming and/or depleting relationships, and putting boundaries on the relationships you have.  You simply cannot text with your friends and give your attention to your children.  You cannot listen to your gossipy neighbor and still have enough emotional energy to kiss one more boo-boo.

Avoid time-sucking tasks, even if it’s labeled “ministry.”  You already have a ministry.  Evaluate your energy gauge before saying yes to anything more.  Ask yourself, “Can I complete this obligation without becoming irritated with my children or unduly depriving them of my attention?”  If the answer is no, avoid it.

Avoid recreation you have trouble controlling.  Maybe it’s Pinterest or Facebook, a stack of fiction novels, computer games, or hobbies—we all have recreational activities that can be addicting.  If you have a tendency to stay up too late reading, avoid that activity.  Avoid opening Pinterest if it means you will not get school lunches made and will be yelling at your children in the morning because of it.  Do not do it.  It’s like pouring water on the grass!   Make the lunches first.  Open Pinterest later.

Avoid serving pride in place of love.  This is a tough one.  We are so easily deceived into thinking we are loving our children and spouse when in fact, we’re doing things to make ourselves look better.  For example, I like to bake.  I love to bake crazy desserts that take three days to make.  My children would be 95% just as happy with the chocolate chip cookies they can help me make.  So why do I kick everyone out of the kitchen and waste myself trying to replicate something out of a magazine?  Because of pride.  I want the “wow, look at me!” factor.  Yes, I do.  And so do you.

There will be time for Caramel Machiatto cheesecakes in the years from now when the children are gone.  There will be time for Facebook games and long cups of coffee with friends.  The water will come back on and there will be time for extra ministries, career opportunities, and keeping your house looking like a museum.

But this is not that time.  This is a season of limited resources and abundant need.  Don’t pour your water out on the grass.

A season of limited resources

Please join us tomorrow for Day 10: Appearances

For further thought

1) Do your actions confirm your priority, or do they show that you actually value secondary things more?

2) Think about the ways you spend your energy.  What things deplete you the most?  What things can you cut out?  What things can be rearranged so your priority gets the best of you?

3) Sometimes, pride masks itself as love.  What things do you do to serve your own pride?  Can you show love more by doing less?