Joshua 1:9b Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
Hands down there is one movie genre that deserves the Academy Award for "Best Movie Genre" (Yes, I am making that award up). Chick Flicks! I am actually quite organized about my chick flick obsession and keep a personal running list of the "greats". Near the top of the list is Father of the Bride. This morning I am replaying in my mind a poignant scene in the second movie. The focus of the first film is the engagement and wedding of the young 20s daughter. The second movie centers around the theme of pregnancy, as both daughter and middle-aged mother find themselves pregnant. After the simultaneous birth of both his grandson and daughter, the main character, George, muses about raising his new child. Having been to this rodeo before, he relegates child-rearing to a series of gut-wrenching moments and wonders if he has the stamina to parent yet again.
To a large degree, George is spot on. Back in Genesis 3:16, God is giving the outcomes to Eve of her disobedience. One outcome, with which most of women are frankly more closely acquainted than we'd like to be, is the pain in childbirth. The word here for pain in the original Hebrew can also be translated sorrow. I would submit that we don't just bring forth our children in sorrow but that this sorrow continues throughout the duration of child rearing and even beyond.
Recently, when I picked up our four year old, Clara, from preschool she ran into my arms sobbing. She had fallen on the playground that day and somehow the fact that I was not there with her, hurt her in a place no physical wound could touch. My heart broke as I held her. Having older daughters, my mind was instantaneously flooded with dozens of memories of holding them while they mourned emotional wounds no band-aid could cover. I suddenly felt exhausted and totally ill-equipped to survive the sorrow to come.
This morning, I am reading Luke 22:45-71 in which Luke recounts the arrest and initial Jewish trial of Jesus. Let's journey through this passage not with Jesus, but instead with Peter. The scene opens with Jesus praying in the Garden at Gethsemane. He has drawn Peter, James and John away from the other disciples and asked them to "pray that you will not fall into temptation" (Verse 40). However when Jesus returns to them after praying himself, he finds them asleep, "exhausted from sorrow" (Verse 45). That is precisely how I have felt innumerable times as a parent. In those moments, I have a choice to pray or panic. Tragically, Peter never joins the Lord in prayer and the results are both disastrous and serve as an excellent model for why I desperately need to pray as a parent.
1) Poor Decision-Making - While Jesus was still speaking, Judas arrived with the temple guards. Peter makes the unfortunate choice to draw his sword and wound the servant of the high priest (Verses 47-50). This is the same Peter who heard Jesus' instruction to give an adversary your coat when he takes your tunic (Matthew 5:40) and to love and pray for those you count as enemies (Matthew 5:44). Lesson 1 to me is that when I do not pray during my trials as a parent, I act out of my instincts instead of the truth of God's Word.
2) Flimsy Faith - Once Jesus had been arrested, Luke recounts that Peter followed at a distance (Verse 54). When I skip the step of praying for my children and attempt to handle their problems myself, I find the second result is growing alienation between myself and God. Without that connection, I have no energy to carry through with Biblical parenting.
3) Secondary Sources Take First Place - Following at a distance climaxed in Peter denying he had any association with Jesus (Verses 55-61). While I might not out-right deny my faith during a parenting dilemma, I may fail to pray. This leads to the tendency to turn to other sources of help instead of God. I begin to deceive myself into thinking that advice from others, the latest pop-culture parenting manual or even counseling is the answer to my parenting questions. While none of these resources are wrong, they need to maintain their rightful place as secondary sources of parenting help. The final result of not praying over my children is forgetting who is my primary parenting manual.
The next time I find myself exhausted with the sorrow of parenting, I need to remind myself to stop and pray. Then I will make better parenting decisions, be plugged into the parenting power source and turn to the Word first as my primary parenting manual.
Thank you!! I really enjoyed this post. I have been thinking a lot about this lately. With all of the exciting things that parenting brings, there is a sorrow that is like no other when we see our children sad or hurt. When we got back from church on Sunday, our son Noah fell and hit his head on the coffee table so hard that a golf ball size knot formed immediately. I instantly burst into tears along with him because I was sad and scared. I know that I must learn to handle these situations differently, and I also know that there are many more physical and emotional hurts that my children will face. When I think about that, it is overwhelming. We so badly want to protect our children. Thank you for the reminder that we don't need to be equipped to handle all of the sorrow to come...
ReplyDelete~Jessica White (Hope)