So at the beginning of this month my friend challenged me to read one chapter of Proverbs each day and reflect on it. This sounded like a good idea as I had been looking for a study to fill the time before my church study begins in September. I Just read chapter 27 and the first verse talked about not boasting about tomorrow because you do not know what it will hold for you. I have realized over the past week (starting with a very good message on pride at church on Sunday) that I have a serious pride issue. More serious than most. I was taking an enormous amount of pride in how humble I was. Some sort of irony there.
People would compliment me on my ability to handle a "large" family and I would point to God and say, "only through Him". People would compliment me on something I had written and I would say "the words come from Him"... I could go on and on. Sure it sounds good on paper. I was giving the praise to God and I knew in my heart that it was all due to Him but I was prideful in the fact that I was allowing Him to work in my life in such ways. I would look at other with judgment, thinking "You could do these things too if you would just ... trust Him... seek Him... ask Him...."
The best part of it all though, was that deep down I felt like a fraud. I did not really have it together. I was not being the mother I wanted to be or that God has called me to be.
I spend large amount of time thinking about my parenting. This is, after all, my job. I want to be the mother God has designed me to be. I was not coming close to being that mother, so upon going home after getting lavished with praise on my skills, and pointing everyone to the glory of God, I would sit in guilt as I spoke sharply, lost my temper and basically did everything I did not want to do as a mother!
So along comes Proverbs.... verse after verse convicted me. I was a fool holding onto God's word, teaching it to my children and then hardly coming close to living it out myself. I was afraid I was going to vaccinate my children against Christ and His love for us. I would give them just enough for them to think "Hey if this is what Christ did for my mom than NO THANKS!"
Monday was a rough day for me. I felt like the world was coming in around me and I did not know why. I decided to "unplug". I stopped playing on Facebook, I quit calling people to chat or complain. God wanted to talk to me but there was too much noise for me to hear Him.
Last night, Keith and I were getting ready for bed and we had a RIDICULOUS disagreement (which I will not go into here as it was so lame!!!) and this lead to me telling him how much I was hating the mother I was becoming. He and I had a very enlightening conversation. I will try to share some of it here....
(This is all from Keith)
We need to treat our children the way we would treat them if they were behaving the way we WANT them to behave. We need to be kind and gentle with them AT ALL times, even when they are being their very worst. (He got this from a rabbi that spoke at a marriage thing a few years ago who applied it to husbands and wives but it certainly goes here) This is, after all, how God treats us EVERY single day. He is always kind and gentle with us. He may be firm to get our attention but He is never harsh or short. And aren't we called to be like Christ?
Wow. This really struck me. This is going to be hard. It has been very hard today. It can only happen if I CHOOSE to seek God each moment of each day. It can only happen through Him.
And here is the real kicker in the whole thing... we cannot expect it the result in different behavior.
WHAT??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? This is where I get caught up EVERY time. I am very result oriented. I had to be as an athlete and a college coach. If something did not work, you tried something different until you saw results. And at the end of every spring, when the season was over, you would see the result of the choices you made. Parenting DOES NOT work that way. Sometimes you can see result quickly but usually you are going to have to wait A LONG LONG LONG time to see if you made the right decisions.
This is going to be hard for me. I want to be the kind and gentle mother God has designed me to be, but I know, with a most humble heart, it is only going to happen with Him, in Him, through Him. Someone once asked me about how many children Keith & wanted and I told them that God uses each new child to break me in some new way, so I will take as many as it takes for Him to turn me into who He want me to be! We might catch up with the Duggers after all!!
I LOVE IT WHEN GOD SPEAKS TO ME! He always has something awesome to say!!!
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