My children are really adorable, the world tells me so. But I won't let them be limited to that. The world's standard of beauty will not define how I raise my kids.
I refuse to teach them that beauty is the ultimate standard to attain to. That if you have beauty you are one step ahead of the rest of "them". That if you have the right look, body, clothes or type of makeup, that you will get further in life. I have seen the detrimental effects in adults who grew up with that idealization. It creates many footholds for sin to enter in with relation to jealousy, comparison, pride, lust, covetousness.
Instead, I will encourage them to use their voices, to expand their knowledge and their abilities. I will encourage them to not conform, to be their own person. I will not try to box them into my own definitions or criticisms. I want them to fly one day and they won't if I clip their wings with my words.
So will I complement them? Yes, but rarely on physical aspects. I will focus my encouraging words to heart issues: the kind thing they did that day, the thoughtful action they showed their sibling, how they asked to pray for someone hurting, how hard they tried at something, that they pulled out their Bible for devotions, that they had great attitudes even though they lost their game, that they are willing to learn, that they apologized, that they changed their behavior.
There are obviously too many to list, but enough to focus on that I don't need to be so shallow as to only show them I think their worth is limited to external features.
If your kids have flown out of the nest already, this still applies to how you compliment them and any grandchildren you may have in your life. Let your legacy be that you care for their heart.
"Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." -Psalm 127:5a
Children, they are a blessing indeed. Solomon's Psalm seems so well forgotten in this day and age where technology, media, and people constantly guilt us with messages that "YOU time" is most important, what matters to YOU is what should hold ultimate value in your life, YOUR feelings rule above morality and truth. While some of those, within reason, are not in and of themselves bad (boundaries, knowing who we are and whose we are, etc.), we need to keep in mind that our standard isn't ourselves. The Bible is the living, breathing Word of God that we are blessed enough to have available at our every whim. So I encourage you to read the entire Psalm that this verse originates.
Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat--for He grants sleep to those He loves.
Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.
Psalm 127
When you think about a builder, you may think about the final stages of construction and them pounding in that final nail to exhibit their accomplishments. We need to take the time to consider that a builder is not solely a finisher. A builder literally builds the house. He researches his plans, where to buy the right size of materials, he researches the price needed to come in at budget (or hopefully under!), he researches the wood, the strength needed for the beams, etc. Then he purchases the materials and secures a work force. A builder has the ability to start with a concept and create a masterpiece; so, too, with us when we are building our families.
We can birth or adopt or foster many kids in our house and claim that our quiver is full. We can bide our time with them and then fling them off as arrows into the world wishing the best for them--all the while completely oblivious to what life should look like as a true Christian. We can claim that they are a blessing without counting the cost and providing a stable environment rooted in the teachings of His Word. We can help them to knowledgeably learn without ever truly understanding in their hearts.
When I hear the word 'vain', my mind drifts to vanity, a useless series of thoughts that ultimately lead to nothing, I did not know that the root of the word stems from devastation. The Hebrew word for vain is shav'/shav and stems from the word show'/showah/shoah. Strong's Concordance defines it, in part, as follows:
to rush over; a tempest; by implication, devastation:-- desolate, destroy, destruction, storm, wasteness.
Strong's Concordance defines vain as:
shav' (vain) stemming from show' meaning that the uselessness is to be seen "in the sense of desolating; evil (as destructive), literal (ruin) or moral (especially guile); figurative idolatry (as false, subjective, uselessness (as deceptive, objective), false, lie lying, vain, vanity.
With that meaning in mind, let's journey back to the first couple lines in Psalm 127.
Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat--for he grants sleep to those he loves.
It is no longer a passive setting in which we ought to read this. It is very active with very real consequences to follow. There is a personally invited destruction if we do not have the Lord as our builder; a secret acceptance, if you will, in the background of our homes encouraging a hidden life that does not silence evil, idolatry, destruction, or ruin. If God is not our cornerstone, the house will crumble. There has been an all too common thread among how my generation was raised to outwardly present a Christian life. I cannot passively raise my children "in Christ" without expecting that I am inviting destruction and ruin upon my household.
Back to the builder, we remember that he starts with the small things. He starts with a piece of paper and slowly adds to his list things to do in order to build a house. Like the man in Proverbs, it says:
"Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow." (Proverbs 13:11 NIV, emphasis mine)
So also is this true with us as Christians, so also is this true with us as parents. We have our cornerstone, we have the Word, now we need to be diligent in training them from birth to truly follow the Lord AND His commands, to seek out in all they do to honor HIM and bring HIM glory. No other goal should come higher than this in raising our kids. If our children can fully grasp this concept, then morality naturally follows.
Let's start with a plan as well, the Bible, and begin to teach our children the real Truth.
We had struggled with the idol of perfection since we were dating. My marriage has been flaunted on the altar of perfection perception. By me. By my husband. By extended family.
It was unclear to me the depths of my idolatry until our marriage was attacked. But even after that, I still white-knuckled my outward persona to match what I had hoped to convey to the world: we were still perfect. We were still the perfect couple. So then God threw a couple more blows my way to completely humble me where I finally saw it. I finally saw Him in His splendor, and me on my knees begging for forgiveness.
I saw some of the deep-rooted sins in my life; one of them being my view of marriage. I didn't know how to view it but I kept hearing the word 'perfect' all around me and it kept bringing me back to inadequacy. Then I noticed how often I said it and wrote it. My husband was saying it, and so were my kids... and pretty much everyone around us. I realized our culture is driven to perfection in so many areas. Not many of them are Godly or Biblical, and yet we strive so hard to meet an unattainable standard. And if we can't, we show off the illusion that we have concocted. We fight so hard to show off.
I lasted about a week listening to the all-too-common use of the word 'perfect' and then I was done. I had had enough. I threw my hands on the table, stood up out of my chair, and told the kids my new rule. We would not be saying the word 'perfect' in this house. Let me show you some of the definitions of 'perfect' from dictionary.com:
As a Mom, we are given one of the highest callings. I feel as though I have heard it all before, "You are their theologian", "You are their most important teacher", "You have the ability to lead them." I agree with all of those. But I never understood the true gravity, the depth, the gumption, the weight behind it all until I was forced to put it into practice.
Two years ago, I took a parenting class; I had two options at Church for the women's Bible Study--one was the parenting class and the other was to study a book of the Bible in detail. I was torn because I really enjoy studying word for word through a book to understand the context; besides, I told myself, my kids are great, well-behaved, good enough children. I was proud of who they were, that they were generally very respectful, all the hours and consistent training I had endured, what I had accomplished with them, how they presented themselves in public, and how they acted. But I decided to take the parenting class in hopes of getting to know more Moms as I had not totally reached out to anyone.
The first week, I was brought to weeping tears when I discovered just how crucial my role was--my pride was swept up in my kids' outward appearances, my heart was full of ugliness because my kids obeyed and theirs didn't, my kids knew who was boss and that they knew they needed to listen to me and their Dad. But wow, I have been broken many times in the last three years, and you would think I would be used to it as my pride continually has been shattered over and over, but I did not expect the weight of what was missing to hit me so hard.
My heart. Their hearts. I had missed it. I had not only passively missed it, I bypassed it completely to focus on external things. I had set up my children to be obedient idols to hopefully incite jealousy all to boost my own pride. I had been humbled yet again, with good reason.
In my few years of parenting, I trained them to obey and had pretty well succeeded. But what occurred to me when studying this book was that their roots were lacking. I had not watered them properly to encourage their hearts and their consciences to think for themselves. What an empty wasteland I had encouraged. And my heart was no different.
I repented a lot while studying that book, cried through almost every chapter as the Lord worked more on my heart and understanding to really get it through how I ought to be living needed to first be changed, then I could pass that along to my children. I couldn't very well teach them heart and knowledge issues if my heart was hard and my eyes blind.
Then my husband and I attended a Sunday School class about parenting, that is enforcing the ideas behind the first book. The first class we sat in the back, thank goodness, because I started weeping uncontrollably. Seriously. I could not stop. And it was ugly crying. The weight of my responsibility as a Mother had hit again.
It reinforced to me the gravity of what God had called us to as parents. It is the hard things in life that this really comes into play that I have been made more aware of. It means protecting your kids when God calls you to; even if that means you need to fully cut off family members. It means living out that God is number one; even if that means you need to confront those around you who have evil patterns of sin and destruction. It means living out your life in accordance to His Word; especially so your children can see you strive to honor God. It means choosing His path; especially so your children can witness you doing hard things to keep His commands. It mean confessing your sinfulness in front of your kids; especially so your children can know that you are not perfect. It means apologizing to your kids when you have wronged them or acted out of anger; especially so that your children can know that you do not expect perfection from them, but that their hearts are in the right place. It means living transparently and being open and honest to invite them to also live that way. It means encouraging them to not keep secrets as that may lead to a secret life one day. It means so much. It really means so much and when you stop to think about the gravity of it all, and how that has played out in your life, with the steps you have been called to take to raise your kids, it can feel overwhelming.
Not overwhelming in a sense of despair, but in how much God has brought us through and led us to this point. We have had to endure a lot to raise our kids in a way that we feel God desires us to, and it is SO worth it. I know I would give up the world and all it's riches, and glory, and people, if God will be their God in the end. I would do it all over again.
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'" Matthew 16:24
I am slowly understanding now the gravity of this statement and what it means in this life to live this out. We have a cross to bear as Christians and I pray that God may continue to peel back the layers over my eyes to see His truth accomplished in my life and through my life.
