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All in Parenting
It was a weekend of no sleep and me alone with the three kids, our youngest going through a three-month growth spurt and the older two deciding they were going to learn how to talk back.
It was a weekend of me begging God every step of the hour to help me be a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of mama when all I wanted to do was have a long soak in the bath. It was a weekend of me telling the boys I needed a few minutes in the office alone, to fall on the carpet and weep.
In a recent interview, Sally Lloyd Jones, author of the Jesus Storybook Bible, offered such simple but profound advice on giving hope to children.
Here is a just a portion of what she said:
Children look to us for everything. But in all that we’ve given children, have we forgotten to give them hope? Have we left them in despair -- looking at what they should do but don't? Looking at who they should be but aren’t? How do we give hope to children? When we take the focus off them and put it back on God where it belongs. They don’t need to be told to try harder, believe more, do it better. That just leaves them in despair. We need a Rescuer.
As we gathered around tables set with gold, blue, and green chargers topped with china; iced water poured into crystal, flowers brimming over vases, we also noticed several lovely, mismatched little pitchers scattered amongst the setting. Some were plain creamware, others cut-glass, some painted with dainty flowers, others edged in gold. Joining us at the table set in her kitchen area, Sally Clarkson picked one up and reflected, “We wanted you to take with you a reminder of your need to be filled, as you constantly pour out to your families at home.”
“Mommy, come. I’ve found this path and there are so many flowers.”
It’s morning, and our second day camping in Jasper, Alberta, our favorite place on earth with its mountain peaks—like a father’s hands cupped, shielding this sacred hollow of water and spruce from the rest of the world.
I leave my coffee and follow my oldest son to the path he’s found and he points out the daisies, the bluebells, the buttercups.
We’ve all been there, the comparison trap. That place where we don’t feel good enough, where our standards and expectations of ourselves meet who we really are. That place where we look at what others are doing with their kids or what we think they are doing, and we feel like a failure. Social media perpetuates this comparison trap and we fall for the bait over and over again.
The comparison trap is a very real place and we are all tempted to fall into it. Whether it be comparing our marriages, jobs, families, children, churches, you name it. But what we don’t often realize in the midst of fighting the good fight against falling into this trap, is that our children are also being tempted to fall into it as well.
With three boys who are only five years apart, a friendly game of putt-putt can quickly get the competitive ( and unfriendly) juices flowing.
We'd only made it to the third hole on the miniature-golf course when one of my boys got a hole in one. He squealed with excitement!
But his joy was short-lived with his brother's harsh words - “That was such an easy hole. You just got lucky. I'm so much better than you at this game.”
