Prideful Child

I am full of pride.  I haven't always known this truth about myself, usually thinking of myself as comparatively humble. I guess using the word "comparatively"  should have been a clue to my pride, or at least my inability to view my weaknesses clearly.  But the realization has struck me clearly, and it happened last week.  On Thursday I loaded up my two favorite pre-schoolers to go to a story time at our local arboretum.  We usually enjoy listening to the story, hearing the teacher discuss the elementary science discussed in the book she reads, and then participating in a craft.  Even though My little man has never been known for his compliant nature or his well-mastered "inside" voice, he typically adds a fun quotient to the outing.   I usually take some measure of PRIDE in accompanying well-behaved children in public.  If he shouts out, I quiet him.  If he loses control, I quickly subdue him.  I am the not the parent who is governed by her children in public (private might be another matter, but I am careful to have others see me as competent and in control in public.  Yes, sounds exactly like PRIDE even as I type 

On Thursday, we arrived in the rain, and just a shade late.  I could feel the storm building as we descended the steps to the program.  Little boy was loud and slightly resistant to the hold of my hand.  We rounded the corner, and I saw we would have to enter the room where all the other children and their mothers were already situated in front of the story lady, crossing in front of everyone to get to the back of the room.  There were tables set up with crayons and paper and glue at the back of the room, and this is what little boy's eyes caught as I directed his older sister to join the child circle.

"Cowere!  COWERE!!"  he shouted, jabbing his pudgy hands towards the crayons.  His mama knew he he was demanding to color, but I foolishly slogged towards the back of the room, thinking I could reason away his insistence.  "Ok, buddy.  Just wait a minute.  Let's listen to the story.  See the story over there."  I whispered in a controlled voice, while lowering myself into a chair and trying to settle him into my lap.  His cries got louder and more petulant.  The other mothers either pretended they didn't see the brewing control war, or openly stared in pity.  One in particular looked completely put-together, carrying her third child in a perfectly wrapped Moby and monitoring her other two children from a gently swaying position at the back of the room. She looked at my above her nose with raised eyebrows and almost imperceptably shook her head.

The battle escalated to the point that I had to escort my son out  of the room.  My frustration with the little man was equaled only by my frantic thoughts of what the other mothers must be thinking of me and my ill-behaved child.  The rest of the program did not improve much, at least from the perspective of this frazzled mama.  Loud demands, insistence on coloring at inopportune times, refusal to follow his mother, demands of first place in line to see the turtle and the snake- it was a never-ending game of wack-a-mole to keep a lid on outright anarchy from the wild two-year old.   I walked to the car embarrassed by my child's behavior.  Foolishly I decided to brave the grocery store on the way home.  Things were no better as I loaded my cart and stood in line to pay.  By the time I was shutting the door to his room as he closed his eyes for a nap, I felt more than ashamed.  My boy was one of THOSE children.  The unruly ones.  The ones everyone looks at and wonders why their parents are so inept.  The ones that throw tantrums and get their own way.  Shame on me.  It colored my mood and outlook for a day or two.  My spirit sank low, dwelling on my own perceived failure.  Even after his mood had changed and a greater degree of obedience and poise had been restored to his little world, I felt a keen stinging my heart, an understanding of how horrible my mothering is.

And then my own personal dawning.  Most of my irritation was bruised ego.  Smarting pride.  I was more bothered by what others, strangers actually, thought of me because of how my children behaved.  Shame on me, but not because of their behavior.  Because of my own black heart.  I want others to look on ME with favor, I need others to give ME their stamp of approval.  She is a good parent.  She is competent.  The fleeting approval of a stranger's thoughts.  That is what I had sought.  What is that if not pride?  Self-centered-ness? 

Even worse, I have realized in the ensuing days, is that in focusing on my own flushed and embarrassed pride, I have completely lost focus of my job.  What am I supposed to be teaching my two blessings, and the third that will join us soon?

"And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."  -Deuteronomy 6:6-7

And more than the commandments, what am I teaching?

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."  -Matthew 22:37

That is it!  That is what I should be teaching, and that is what should trouble my heart if I see it lacking  in our home.  Love God. Follow Him with everything you are and everything you have.  I must exhibit this everyday all day to my children.  I am not tasked with producing well-behaved children.  I am tasked with teaching my children to LOVE THEIR GOD.  It is shameful if I am more concerned about having compliant children so that I appear to be a "good" mother than I am about fostering a love in their little souls for our Heavenly Father.  This, like everything else in life, is not about ME.  Ultimately, I want my son to repent of his headstrong defiance because he knows it breaks his Savior's heart, not because he doesn't want to embarrass his mother.  Yes, in these preschool years, it will be my hand of discipline and my disappointed face that is most clear to him.  The most painful consequence will be the one that brings the most Immediate change in his behavior.  But I pray that these point him to a deep devotion to God, not just a superficial effort to maintain behavioral standards.  May he see that it is the Father to whom he owes his allegiance, heart, mind, and soul., above anyone and anything else.

Lord, take my pride, which You have vividly revealed through my willful children.  Humble me, and enable me in the large task you have entrusted to me: teaching the next generation how to love YOU.  Help me to center all my days on YOU and your glory.

Goodness

Today is our second day of home-educating kindergarten.  So far so good.  This is about the same as a marathon runner saying that the first two seconds have gone really well.  We have barely begun, I know.  My daughter and I are both people of routine, and our routine last year has carried over to this year.  We work on new principles together, and then Mira goes to her desk to work on her "seat work," work she does on her own.  I usually play music for her while she works, and today a song from my childhood started playing, and for some reason, I started to tune in while I worked on future plans.  

The wise man built his house upon the rock, the wise man built his house upon the rock, the wise man built his house upon the rock, and the rains came tumbling down.   

The rains came down on the wise man, but his strong foundation kept his house secure.  The foolish man built on sand, and of course when the rains came down, his house was washed away.

But it was the next verse that really got my attention.  I know I must have sung it many times when I was young, but the words pricked me as though I had never heard them before.  "So build your life on The Lord Jesus Christ...and the blessings will come down.  The blessings will come down as the prayers go up..."   I don't know why I have been so internally cynical lately, but I instantly thought, "Really?!  Is that really true?  Should I be teaching my daughter that blessings will automatically fill her life when she builds on the the solid rock of Christ?"  I know those thoughts sound nothing like thoughts that would emanate from an apparently solid, church-going mom, who spends time each day teaching her children memory verses and singing praise choruses.  But doubts do creep into the minds of all of us, I would imagine.  Sometimes there are seasons of life where we  have to look closely to find tangibles we have been trained to believe are blessings, the undeniable pleasant things, and it is in these seasons that my mind is especially vulnerable to cynical doubt.  So I mulled the question I posed to myself for most of the day.  That night, my husband and I were talking about a difficult area in our life and he reminded me of a verse we had claimed as our own earlier this year.  "‘Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives the people of Israel. Every man return to his home, for this thing is from me.’” So they listened to the word of the Lord and went home again, according to the word of the Lord." (1 Kings 12:24 ESV)

Not such an immediately impacting verse, I know, so a little background might be needed.  God was speaking to the Israelites as they faced a future that was sure to be filled with near slave labor.  Solomen had died, and his foolish son had been approached by the people as they begged for their strenuous workload to be lightened.  Rather than hearing their pleas with compassion and wisdom, he consulted his young and arrogant friends who advised him to demonstrate his strength as king by increasing their work.  He relayed that message to the people, and they promptly rebelled, leaving Rehoboam as king only over one of the twelve tribes.  The kingdom was split due to his foolishness, but this was not to the liking of the new king.  He assembled men and chariots and prepared to fight his countrymen, to regain the throne over the entirety of Israel until...God told him not to.  And He didn't just tell him to stand down.  He affirmed his sovereignty and his goodness by proclaiming, "this thing is from me."  Stunning to imagine that God would take credit for a rebellion in the midst of His people, almost a civil war.  Stunning to see that He acknowledges control of events in the history of His chosen people that seem anything but good.  Yet, God clearly had a plan and a greater blessing for humanity than anyone in that day could comprehend when he spoke to Rehoboam.  His tapestry of blessing-His self-revelation to mankind was just beginning.  "This thing is from me."   

That is where I made the connection to the kindergarten Bible song.  Blessings.  Do I have even a rudimentary understanding of what a true blessing is?  Am I focused on those things that I have decided are good for me?  The things that will work towards a purpose in my life I have deemed desirable, and that I can forsee will bring out a happy conclusion?  Have I even acknowledged that God's definition of what is good, what is beneficial to me, what is a blessing may not always coincide with mine.  And when the two definitions do not seem to be in sync, God's definition is the true one.  The one that counts.  "You are good..." -Psalm 119:68. The standard of goodness and blessing itself.  Not my infantile understanding of those words.  He knows.  He gives His children blessings that may appear to be struggle and heartache on the surface, but in the tapestry of His sovereign will, they are goodness defined.  Yes, I can teach my little girl that as the prayers go up, the blessings come down.  Because when I pray for God's will, I open my heart to receive His blessing-the ultimate blessing of playing a role in glorifying Him-but also in receiving daily blessings straight from His hand.  

"I believe in a blessing I don't understand,

I've seen rain fall on the wicked and the just

Rain is no measure of His faithfulness

He withholds no good thing from us."

                                    -Sara Groves