motherhood/family/parenting

Am I the only mom who wonders if she’s doing it right, reads one author’s parenting method and second guesses everything she’s ever done? There are “new and better” ways right?

Yes, I have days where I feel like the older I get, the less I know about anything. But do you want me to tell you what I have learned as I’ve gotten older? Simply this:

Hang on to the timeless truths. If we will look closely at a teaching or ideology, we can see whether it follows sound doctrine, the tenets of God’s Word. Where it doesn’t, we should be wary. Where it does, we should listen.

(Disclaimer: I have gleaned many insightful and wonderful things from non-Christian sources regarding raising children. But we should be astute enough to be able to see where a teaching strays from biblical doctrine.)

Recently I ordered “The Duties of Parents” by J.C. Ryle. You should too.

It was such a clear, fresh voice in the often-cacophony of parenting advice flying around. It went back to some basics I know and gave me clarity and inspiration to essentially reboot.

I thought I’d offer a summary in series over the next few days. There’s another great book I’ll be pulling from as well. I hope it encourages you!

Love

“Train up your children with all tenderness, affection, and patience.”

“I do not mean that you are to spoil him…” Ryle continues.

But he reminds that a child cannot be taught, cannot have truths and values imparted to him unless it is done by affection that first draws his heart to yours. You can command a child by fear and intimidation, but you will only get his outward obedience, if you get that. You will not effect genuine respect and love for you or for His Creator.

A child disciplined in love is one who grows to understand his mother despises causing him tears, and is yet willing to suffer over his grief for his own sake.

We must carefully teach them “line upon line, precept upon precept”, which requires patience and long-term vision.

Are you feeling convicted at this point because you have been angry and frustrated at your children? Because you have parented impatiently? I have too. Far more times than I can count. And I’ll tell you like I tell me: “We cannot lament the past except where it helps us to improve in the future.” Got it? Good.

When motherhood feels too hard, I try to take a deep breath and remember it is the cord of kindness, gentleness and sympathy that will most easily lead our children to follow us. We should share with them a friendship, yet remain distinguished by respect, wisdom and our place as parents.

They should know our love for them by the attention we give to their childish wonder, the time we take to teach them a lesson, or to simply be with them. We need to enjoy them. Part of our enjoyment will depend on our diligence to train them, but still they must know that our deep love for them drives everything we do.

As you’ll see in the next few parts, Ryle distinguishes between love and indulgence, and makes it clear that love demands we expect certain things.

It is possible, then, to train our children in the nurture of the Lord, requiring what He has laid out, but doing so without exasperation. That is our duty.

“Soul love is the soul of all love. To pet and pamper and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look to, and this life the only season for happiness–to do this is not true love, but cruelty. It is treating him like some beast of the earth, which has but on world to look to, and nothing after death. It is hiding from him that grand truth, which he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy,–that the chief end of his life is the salvation of his soul and to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” J.C. Ryle

A friend of mine and I were discussing how to teach our children about the sins and dangers of the world we live in without harming them in the process. We disagreed some about the way to go about it. She talked about being glad her children, who are at public school, are seeing the “real world”, even though some of the tough questions they ask concern her. (She has to define adult terms just to be able to have conversations about what her children learn.)

This argument bolsters many parents’ opinion that homeschooling is bad for children, believing they should learn to deal with the negative influences now because they will face them later.

I refer to the alternative in the title as “sheltering” simply because that’s the catch phrase for it.

One misconception I’ve learned about this debate: none of our children are isolated from “the world” or its ways. There really isn’t a “sheltering.” They are simply exposed from different angles. And that makes all the difference.

One effective way I have found to approach an ethical/moral dilemma is to think of it with an exaggerated hypothesis. In this scenario, I thought of how I want my kids to learn to deal with pornography.

Pornography is packaged beautifully. It is marketed to be full of pleasure and fun and excitement. We’re never shown the broken homes and hearts that lie in the wake of its path. It’s typical of sin: it lies.

For that reason, I want them to learn about it differently than the producers would teach them. And at the appropriate time. It would be foolish to try to have a conversation with my 4 year-old about words and images he doesn’t need to know. But it’s not wise to try to pretend, indefinitely, that pornography doesn’t exist.

Based on my friend’s opinion, taking this exaggerated example (though I’m not sure “exaggerated” is the right term since it is a reality), we might leave a stack of pornographic magazines in his bedroom to peruse at his leisure. We might even tell him “they’re bad”, but still give him access to process it on his own. To do that would be to let the lying marketers teach my children about this poison.

Not many parents would agree with this approach.

Because the truth is, I can teach my children about the sin and damage of pornography without willingly exposing them. Does that mean they won’t be exposed at some later time? No. Does my unwillingness to expose them now make them ill-prepared to deal with it later? I don’t think so.

What our job as parents should be is teaching what is right to our children, securing their moorings to God’s Word as they grow up, giving them the moral compass they need to evaluate any number of situations in the future.

Will a child be “shocked” as an adult to see pornography for the first time? I hope so. Does that make him less suited to deal with it? I can’t imagine how. This idea that if our children aren’t submerged in all the darkness of the culture they will somehow be unequipped to handle darkness is not a concept I find to be Scriptural.

The wise father in Proverbs pleaded with his son to “enter not into the path of the wicked.” Does that reconcile with the idea that parents who prefer to not immerse their children in depravity are too guarded and sheltering?

By the way, depravity resides in us all. There is certainly no such thing as shielding our kids from sin when we live in sin-wrapped flesh. There is a difference, though, in being redeemed by His blood, and seeking to “eschew evil” and do what is right. Our job isn’t to pretend the world around us isn’t depraved, but to examine it through a filter of truth.

I think we are responsible for teaching our children about sin, the same way Jesus taught his (adult) disciples about sin. It’s not a hiding away and shielding their eyes, neither is it a releasing them into territory before they are fully discipled. But as we walk with them, giving them a right lens through which to see, cultivating a right heart with which to discern.

You know that end of the year energy–cleaning out, getting rid of stuff, organizing–it’s short lived, but it gives us a much-needed boost for the new year.

I suffer from too many expectations and I have to constantly keep a reality check. Going into the new year I want to live purposefully. But I want to live realistically.

I want a tidy house and I have ideas to streamline our routine. But, I have 11 people who live here all day. I must make allowances for that reality. (Did you know that if your children get into the habit of leaving their things lying around, even after you’ve nagged them to death about putting them away, that if you start throwing the things in the garbage they will miraculously start putting them away?  You’re welcome.)

It’s easy to let a day full of physical demands crowd out the more meaningful goals of living. But if we get deliberate, we can command our time.

I want to see my children grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, but I have to remember they are still growing, and their maturity will come slowly. I can challenge them, but I need to be patient and realize how much growing I still have yet to do. The reality is, I want them to be light years ahead of me. So I tend, and trust the Lord for increase. We have struggles just like you. I get frustrated and wish my children were more (fill in the blank). But I am committed to pouring all I have into them, knowing they belong to the Father. I’ll do my part, He will have to do His. And I will rest in that.

These are some random things I plan to be more deliberate about:

Reading great books with the family. This is one of the most important things that inspire us to live deliberately.

We do this already, but maybe not enough. We began reading Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men as a family and I tell you I think every family should read this book. So. Awesome. I also think our generation does not spend enough time reading about the lives of the great heroes of the faith. We don’t have the same spiritual tenacity and it would serve us well to be reminded of what faith looks like when it’s tried by fire.

I encourage my children that if they want to grow and mature in the faith, they have to take steps toward that. Reading great books is one way we can all become more passionate followers of Christ.

Here are a few (not complete)  we are adding to our list:

• Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill (also by Mansfield)
• Seeking Him: Experiencing the Joy of Personal Revival (Nancy Leigh Demoss)
• The Reason for God (Timothy Keller)
• Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (John Bunyan)

Playing with my littles. Make believe. Stories. Cooking. Creating. Simple stuff. I want to live beside my children, building memories, enjoying these fleeting moments. We, in our busy world, too-much underestimate the importance of this monumental task of mothering in the moments. I don’t want Facebook to rob my children of their mom.

Breathing vision into my older children. There is so much for a mother to impart to her children over time. But those lessons, that vision, is really imparted in small ways every day. I want them to be wise, to grow in maturity, to understand what God’s Word teaches them about how to be men and women, about what really matters in life. I want them to be productive and strong, positive and confident, humble and kind. Such action starts with modeling the behavior we desire to see crafted in their lives. And I’ll admit, that’s  the hardest. It’s easy to read books and do studies (which are important) but I must become the person I desire to see my children become and that involves my growing and seeking the Lord with an impassioned heart.

Adjusting to my new normal. I have married a daughter and it is splendid. Just tonight, it hit me for the first time, and the tidal wave of tears came. I just miss her. And yet, I truly am SO happy for her that it is beyond words. She is peaceful, full of joy and completely in her element as a wife. Her husband is the most gentle thing I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the way the Lord worked it all out. And I still miss her until it hurts. But I will adjust and so will she (she misses us terribly, too, amid all her new joys.).

But I still have a bustling family here and I am excited about having a little more energy to pour into these challenges.

I want to inspire excellence, and still remember they are children.

I want to expect much, and give much grace for their humanity, as I expect them to do for me.

I want to lead by example, loving Jesus in a way that makes them long for Him.

I want to become my husband’s best friend so their childhood is marked by a beautiful, steady, safe-haven of mother and father.

I want to live fully, remembering my frailty and not getting too upset with myself for an ordinary day. They happen. In fact, I don’t want to despise the ordinary day at all, but to recognize that living fully is precisely making the most of ordinary.

The new year, a new start, new  purpose and new goals. I pray we are all inspired to move forward and see the big picture–that we are all parts in this glorious display of Christ’s Kingdom on earth, and the way we live every day matters in that picture.

1.  I’m on your team.

Sometimes, they may not think that. Like when I tell them “no snacks if you don’t eat your lunch.” Or, “I’m sorry, but you need to work on your friendship with your sister before you go hang out with your friend.” Or, “I love you. Which is why I know a Google Plus account isn’t going to benefit you just now.”

So I remind them, a lot, that I’ve lived longer and experienced more and I actually do know a few things and I am parenting through a lens of experience with love as my motive. I am for them.

2.  It doesn’t matter what so-and-so are doing/watching/reading.

This seems to be a popular tactic to apply when a certain thing is off limits. They point to a different family and that is supposed to give us permission to say yes. BUT…their children are different than my children. What might be fine for one, because of maturity, wisdom-or a lack thereof, isn’t necessarily fine for another. Call it parenting intuition or simply my prerogative, I want them to know that I am not following a ritual or formula, or copying what someone else is doing hoping it all turns out right. I am, in fear and trepidation, begging God for wisdom, often failing, often repenting and asking forgiveness, but trying with all my might to bring them up in the nurture of the Lord, not the notion of the general populace.

3. God is good and they get to choose gratitude.

I think there is nothing sadder or more debilitating in life than a person who chooses to nurse wounds, rehearse offenses and live with growing bitterness at all the things wrong in their lives. We all choose. We choose to be grateful or we choose to complain. We can hone in on what is wrong, or magnify what is right. We can give thanks or breathe curse. What we choose will largely determine who we become and whether we thrive as people. I want to foster a sense of gratitude in my children and I know it must start with me. Ouch. And moving on….

4.  Life is about balance.

Kind of like the Scripture…”To everything there is a season…” There is a time for work, and that should be done willingly. There is a time for play, but it shouldn’t dominate our lives. There is a time to be quiet and we should make the time. There is a time to mourn and a time to dance. We should learn to be flexible and not become such creatures of habit that we cannot adapt to what the situation requires.

5.  They have a purpose.

Does that sound like a cliche? Surprisingly, I think the majority of humans don’t know they have a purpose or at least don’t know what it is. Broadly, as Christians, our purpose is to glorify the Creator. Specifically, that is lived out differently, according to our gifts. I want my children to know that their lives should be painted with the brush of glorifying God. The fleshing out of that may look boring or even fruitless to men, but as they pursue Him and seek to live for Him, their lives are ignited by meaning, and whether they are doing something the world deems fantastic or not, it will be glorious to the only One to whom it matters, to whom they will give an account.

*I would love to hear your “things kids need to know.”

Do not get sidetracked by numbers. Our Lord never did.

There are some fantastic ministries around, you know? And I’m beyond grateful for them. Those radio programs that reach the whole world, books and sermons and speakers who touch more lives than they’ll ever know. Praise the Lord for them. We need them.

And then I wonder if my work means anything.

Do you ever compare yourself?

If you are living a life of obedience, seeking to walk humbly with your God, your ministry is just as robust, just as meaningful as the famous missionary-biography you just read.

Jesus. Perfect. Missionary. The spearhead leader of a movement that would surpass any other religion. Let’s talk about his numbers:

One hundred fifty, give or take a few. That was the whopping number of followers He garnered while on earth. The man that performed miracles that have never been matched. The man that died and rose again.

He didn’t get caught up in numbers. He got caught up in walking alongside people. The word? Relationships.

I write here mainly to moms. If you are a mom, walking alongside people, building relationships, your ministry can be compared to the perfect Savior’s.

Don’t let yourself compare your ministry to anyone else.

And if God can take that handful of people Jesus poured into and multiply it to the ends of the earth, He’ll do the same with your faithful investing.

Tend your mission field. Build and invest and serve the people in your care. Teach them about the Father through your life. Mother with a generational vision. You have no idea what God is doing with your fish and loaves.

From a couple of years ago…thoughts on Thanksgiving.

Bria, Ashton, Alexa, Avalee, Brooks, Mallie, Kyla, Ellia & Jax,

If there is one trait in this life that will give you a rich, fulfilling one, it is GRATITUDE.

The ability to see the beauty in simple pleasures; the ability to let what you have blind you to the things you don’t.

Gratitude is knowing that God is enough, no matter what your circumstances.

Gratitude is not taking your life for granted. It is remembering that a healthy body is a gift, a warm house is not a right, and food at every meal is a luxury to most of the world.

Children, I won’t apologize to you because you don’t have all the technological gadgets your peers do. I am not sad that we can’t buy you your own car when you turn sixteen, or that you are saving your money to buy a special thing you’ve been wanting.

From my observation of the world these forty years, this will help you, not harm you.

Gifts are nice when they are gifts, but they can be too much. So much that you forget, and take for granted, and become ungrateful and feel entitled.

I love you too much for that. I praise God with the psalmist for having “neither too little nor too much”. I thank Him for daily bread and I want you to grow up doing the same.

I want you to find contentment in simplicity, looking to the relationships around you for your deepest joy.
And I want to thank you SO MUCH, that you prefer people over prosperity. Lots of people worry about our younger children taking something away from our older ones, but not once have you worried about that.

You have reminded us that they add something to your lives. While the others worry, you’ve even asked for more siblings…oh the purity and rightness of a child’s thoughts! That we would be able to think like you do!

Gratitude is so easily robbed in our culture! We live the largest irony in stating that “money doesn’t make you happy” and then sacrificing our lives to disprove our theory.

So, I pray this Thanksgiving season that you would hold on to gratitude. Be thankful for every sunrise, every warm bowl of soup, every night your Daddy comes home, for every clean item of clothing in your closet, for peace, when others are at war….be thankful, and even if it were all taken away, tune your hearts to say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

I think we don’t look enough into our little boy’s face and see the man, or into our daughter’s and see the woman. Enjoying and celebrating their childhood is normal and good, but it can be too easy to hover there, forgetting the goal, forgetting to grow them up, forgetting they are men and women in the making, even now.

Stephen Mansfield’s book, Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men, (run, and do not walk, to Amazon to buy this book) has rekindled a vigor in me to raise men, reminding me of how desperately our society depends on it. Mansfield, a brilliant writer and a godly man, gives four “maxims” of manhood.

One of them is this: “Men tend their fields.”

Mansfield explained that he was a bad defensive player in football until one of his genius coaches taught him an important life lesson. He drew a box on the field and told him, “This is your territory. Don’t let anyone in here. Guard it, protect it. It’s yours.” Once, when he let a player through with the ball, the coach told him to meet him on the field the next cold, November morning. When they met, the coach handed Mansfield a pair of scissors and told him he wanted him to “mow” his patch. He said if he took care of it, he would be more likely to guard it. It took Mansfield a week or so to cut all the blades of grass in his patch of field. The plan worked and Mansfield said he became obsessive about that patch. No one ever crossed it again.

Real men own their territories (whatever that is, in each season of life). They guard it, take responsibility for it, care for it, protect it, nurture it and love it.

It’s action. Men do. Real men act like men.

And it shouldn’t come as a surprise, that if we don’t teach them to act like men now, they likely won’t suddenly turn into men as adults.

To tend fields, they must be given fields. From a young age, we can get them practicing responsibility for their fields in their bedrooms, their hygiene, their schoolwork and their chores or jobs. As they become men and learn how to take responsibility for their fields, they grow into men who will do likewise with their families.

We can’t coddle them, tend their fields for them or cushion them from consequences. To do that is to castrate them and set them toward failure. We have too many men who don’t know what it means to have a fierce loyalty to his family, understanding the buck stops with him, because he was never taught the importance of tending his field.

There is a gross misunderstanding by feminists and the feminist-minded that take-charge men are bullies. Some males are bullies, but those aren’t men. (Raising Men in a Man-Hating World)

Real men don’t abdicate or dictate, or wait on someone else or shift blame when things go wrong, or become apathetic. They take charge, they own their responsibility and they nurture those in their care. They emulate Christ who described himself as a shepherd. He owned his field. He tended his flock. The call to men is still the same.

If we don’t have a proper understanding of what a man is supposed to be, we raise our boys wrong. I am challenged to parent with the end in mind. To build habits in my little boys that will grow and serve them in manhood. Do you realize that our work now will greatly impact their wives and children?

A whole generation depends on our vigilance.

This is my sweet daughter. My first born who will marry the love of her life in 33 days. It’s both glorious and gut-wrenching, as I’ve written about.

Preparing to turn loose of one of your children forces a lot of soul-searching. There are always regrets. That’s normal. (I wish I had spent more time on X.)

It is surreal to walk into her bedroom and see it being dismantled. The place where she has been almost every night of her life for over twenty years is about to be empty. (Deep breath.) And a whole lot more hard stuff I’ll refrain from writing.

But yes, it causes me to look back over the twenty years with her at the joy and the time that seemed to fly too quickly. One thing I’ve realized the older I am, is that you really don’t ever “get” this parenting thing. I mean you do, but it’s always changing. What you need as you mother little ones is not the same thing you need to handle the deep questions of your adult children. Nor is it what you need to carefully handle the emerging ones as they grow into their own independence.

As Bria and I have more heart-to-heart talks lately, I know I made mistakes. In my zeal as a first-time-mom, I probably did what many first-time-moms do and expected more than I should. But now I get to look at her and as she gives me enormous grace for my imperfections, I assure her that she, too, will make mistakes. There is no perfect parenting. And that’s OK and normal.

You need to know that: there is no perfect parenting.

What there can be, though, is deliberate parenting, and extending grace to your children when they mess up the way you hope it is extended to you when you mess up. I don’t mean chucking authority and abdicating our responsibility to train and guide them, but to do it with a tenderness and understanding so they know, no matter what in life, we’ve got their backs. Children need that kind of security.

I’m learning about that grace…how to give it to myself as well, and how to give others the benefit of the doubt the way I hope they give it to me.

That’s what walking through this life is. Learning, growing, grace. Being deliberate but being real. Expecting much, and extending much.

I’ll probably walk through this thing nine more times. This is just the beginning and I’m thankful for that grace, that I can learn and hopefully improve as a mom.

And I see God’s grace in the lives of my children, that even despite our mistakes, He is making it right, renewing our strength each day, and allowing us to see the fruit of our labor.

Parenting is little more than being tirelessly intentional, admitting when we’re wrong, asking forgiveness, getting back up and going at it again. It’s keeping our eyes on the goal–seeking first the Kingdom of God and ushering our children into that chief pursuit alongside us.