Parenting 101

There are plenty of days that I feel as if I am learning something new, or trying to re-learn something about parenting.
The Lord has challenged me lately though. He has challenged me in a whole new way when it comes to parenting.
I do love my kids, but how far does real love, HIS love take us...our family. How can I really show HIS LOVE to my kids. And, how can He use outsiders, those not in our family to help shape His love in my kids hearts?

It really started with a neighbor boy coming to our house pretty much every day this summer.
I quickly got annoyed. His tone, his words, his actions were not what I wanted to see in my own kids. And, to add to those selfish thoughts, I was concerned with how he would influence my kids.
Every day turned into a frustration when he was around. But, the frustration was coming from my very own heart, my core, my thoughts. I would even think to myself, "I have enough to keep up with! How can he just come by every day?!"

Then the Lord spoke to me. I felt as if He asked me: "I love this boy just as much as I love your kids. Do you? This is one way that you can share and demonstrate My Love with your kids. By showing this boy MY LOVE."

"What?!!"

This would mean taking lots of my valuable time to strictly supervise what was happening.

The Lord has changed me, helped me see that over time, this boy hungers for boundaries, to do right, to learn.

I have had to "discipline" him in a way by setting boundaries. Telling him, "I'm sorry, but you are going to have to leave, we cannot act that way here. We will see you tomorrow and you can try again." At the beginning of the summer, those days were many and now they are few.
My kids have heard words that they have never spoken before in their presence, and some of them have received a small bloody nose or lip. I have come to learn that they just may hear those same words in a grocery store, and they can get a bloody lip from each other :-) . However, I have also noticed that this boy is using fewer of those words today than when I first met him, and he has become less physical in rough play.

Please don't hear me wrong: I do not believe that Christianity is all about a list of doing right from wrong (for it is by grace you have been saved), but it is about a relationship with our Savior.

I do believe though, at the core of each human being, we no doubt have a complete sinful nature, but we also have a heart-longing to do what is right in the eyes of our Creator. I believe that this boy longs to do what is right but he is simply looking for a leader to show him the way.

It's hard being a stay at home mom, and I'm not talking about hard in the sense that there is a lot to keep up with. I'm talking about finding the right balance between communicating to my kids that my life and everything I do revolves around them. I am learning that it shouldn't, and maybe that it is even dangerous to set it up this way. How am I helping them by putting them on some kind of pedestal? How am I harming them with this kind of parenting?
Yes, I would die for any one of them, or all of them if I had to. That's certainly a kind of Crazy Love (to use the words of Francis Chan). But, it is this same kind of love that I am called to as a believer, to show a dying world His love. It is Crazy. Outrageous. How am I shaping my kids and showing them this kind of love? True love that only comes from Him?

I am learning that there are people, specifically children that the Lord places in my path that He wants me to share His love with.
I am learning that through His eyes, my child, and my children are viewed no different than the ones across the street, or the ones dying of hunger across the planet. It's hard to swallow because I want so much for them.

It's humbling to think that even though I get so caught up in this crazy life of ours,

there is still a whole world out there searching for a Savior.

There might just even be an opportunity to show my kids how to share His love,
right outside my front door.


Now, as the summer is coming to an end, I may just miss seeing that boy as often as we have this summer. And, it has become obvious that Caitlyn has learned a thing or two. She reminded me that at the beginning of the summer, when I helped out in her Sunday school class, we were talking about prayer. The main teacher had a stack of cards and everyone took turns drawing a card that had something that we could pray for in our own lives...like patience, loving our siblings, etc.
I started the "game" by drawing a card from the stack. My card read something like: "Share the love of Jesus with a neighbor or someone in the grocery store."

One night last week, Cailtyn reminded me of the card I received from her Sunday School class. I had completely forgotten about it until she mentioned it. She said: "Hey mom, did you pray for a neighbor to share Jesus with? I think he answered your prayer, because you got to share Jesus with Adam (our neighbor friend) a lot this summer."

I thought about it. I never did pray for an opportunity. Afterall, I was too busy being a stay at home mom and sharing the love of Jesus with my own kids.

And besides, I remeber thinking as I read the card, "Share the love of Jesus in the grocery store?!? All of my energy is focused on keeping my kids alive and well at the grocery store. I would most definitley lose one or two if I had a conversation longer than 10 seconds at the grocery store."

It's amazing to me that the Lord knows exactly what we need, and that He forces us to learn something even when we would rather excuse ourselves from the situation.

He continues to humble me and I am more aware than ever before that as a stay at home mom I am certainly no hero. I'm simply learning to trust Him a little more with each passing day, and that some days are easier than others.

May He grace me with the power to show His love to my kiddos in everything that we do, both
inside and outside of our home, and may He grace us with plenty of opportuities to show His love to those in need.