The BEST Thing to Do When You’re Frustrated at Your Child

I’ve written a lot over the years about the importance of esteeming what Jesus esteemed; how we are not supposed to be chasing the world’s idea of fulfillment, but how fulfillment can be found in serving and “washing feet” the way He commanded us.

And much of that is proverbial language. I mean, we don’t really wash feet. It’s meant to remind us of the blessing and reward of serving others in humility.

But maybe, just maybe, actually washing feet can profoundly re-center us when we need it.

When my children were little and they got into an argument, I made them wash each other’s feet. The awkwardness alone was enough to make them forget about what they were arguing about. 🙂

But let me talk to you, mama, for a minute…we get frazzled, frustrated, impatient, irritable, with the hundreds of things we have going on and then that child does that thing, AGAIN, and “I have had it with you”….

Maybe that child is the one, today, whom God has placed in my life to teach me to serve. And just maybe, if I actually stopped what I’m doing, and washed that child’s feet, it would reset my mind and heart.

I’ve always thought about Jesus’s “do this in remembrance of me” as highly symbolic. And I think it is. But what if it’s both? What if the physical, humble act of bowing before your child, quietly, and just washing his feet is the most profound act of living out the gospel before him you could do?

Just today, I got really frustrated at one of my kiddos. I could see it on his face that he didn’t understand why I was so frustrated. (Remember, we’re mature adults; they’re not.)

And now I’m thinking, that maybe I will wash his feet tomorrow as I apologize for my impatience. And just maybe, he will feel the weight of my sincerity. And remember it. And connect it to our Savior, always extending grace to us for our sin.