Family

Journey to the Center of a Child’s Mind

One of my favorite pasttimes is watching my kids interact with their environment. It is fascinating to see what draws their attention, what furrows their brow, what brings forth a smile or a chuckle, what causes their bottom lip to pucker up. It’s hard to imagine how a small child’s mind processes and interprets all the stimuli they experience every day.

But, that’s just the enjoyable side of my musings. I often have the same sentiment in response to their negative behavior. I see the toothpaste that my son dispensed all over his room and wonder, ‘What was he thinking?’ I witness my two-year old kicking sand in a little girl’s eyes and cannot figure out why that seemed like a thing to do.

While some of these things bring a smile to my face, other things bring a snarl. I see what they are doing and interpret it in my adult mind and pass judgment as to whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. If I don’t understand and cannot relate to what they are doing, then I end up assigning it a ridiculous score. This score is expressed in the volume and tone of my voice. If it is mildly ridiculous, like my son’s rearrangement of my cooking utensils, then he receives a low volume, annoyed tone. If it is highly ridiculous, like my other son’s decision to crawl through the doggie door to the garage and then open the garage door, then he receives a high volume, irate tone. Unfortunately, this system isn’t very effective in actually teaching my children anything about decision-making and responsibility; just in achieving various scores on mommy’s ridiculous meter.

I know this doesn’t work. But to do anything differently, I need to start with how I interpret my children’s behavior. Taking a moment and realizing the disservice that I am doing to my children by jumping to conclusions and then being confident in my knee-jerk assessment is earth-shaking. It dissipates my anger and makes me wonder how else I could react to the things my children do.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I will never find toothpaste in my carpet something to smile about. Nor will I chuckle as my son kicks sand in a poor girl’s eyes. But perhaps I don’t need to lose my cool either. Perhaps I don’t need to assume that because I wouldn’t do it and I would prefer they not do it, that my children share in my adult reasoning. Perhaps I can regard them as the children they are and with the child brains they have.

From this space, I can remain calm. From this understanding, I can find common ground. From this perspective, I can find empathy. And empathy makes all the difference in whether my parenting is authoritative or authoritarian. Many of us had the authoritarian parent, maybe you referred to them as a bully, a dictator, or just a mean ol’ jerk, but you know this kind of parent. This parent jumps to conclusions, won’t listen to your point of view, believes their way is the right way no matter what, and expects you to jump when told to jump (don’t even consider asking how high because questioning is disrespectful). And it leads to a child’s rebellion. Whether it be overt or covert, rebellion is still rebellion. It is defiance and resistance and rejection of all that the other person says and does.

I don’ t want that for my child. I don’t want to be that type of parent. So, what to do? Swing to the middle of the parenting styles and aim for authoritative. It is balancing having a relationship with my child and having boundaries, rules and discipline. It is being a loving authority figure. It is following in the parenting footsteps of our own Heavenly Father. If I can tap into the empathy, I may be able to understand somewhat where my child is coming from, how that way might be errant, and how I can influence my child’s reasoning and behavior rather than just shutting them down in a judgmental or angry fashion.

So, instead of losing it when I find the toothpaste art, I can see how a 4-year old might find it fun to use this blue gel as finger paint to add color to his room, and from this place do some teaching on the drawbacks of this activity, some appropriate alternatives, and on how to clean up toothpaste from multiple surface types. All are valuable life skills that I would have short-circuited with my knee-jerk, top-of-my-lungs, snarly-faced, “What were you thinking?!” My goal now is to take a trip through a child’s mind and see how my adult mind can coach it into the reasoning skills that he will need to be a successful adult himself.

Family, General, Marriage

Playground Antics

When I was in grade school, there was this one boy (we shall call him Donnie) that was a terror to pretty much everyone, but especially to me. Now, I know you may be thinking that he pulled my hair because he liked me – typical playground antics, right? Wrong. This boy was just a plain old bully and I was a doormat who took it, ’nuff said. But what made me remember this boy is that I see the playground antics that Donnie used to pull on us taking place between adults every single day. Apparently, we don’t outgrow some of those fundamental interpersonal dynamics.

One of the things Donnie used to do that drove everyone crazy and most of the girls to tears was taking away the four-square ball. We would be in the middle of a game and he would either walk through the middle grabbing the ball and taking it with him as he went or he would catch a ball that had gone astray of the court and keep it. Either way, Donnie had our ball – the implement necessary to achieve a fun-filled and satisfying recess experience – and he was not giving it back. He was withholding what we needed to somehow get us to give in to his demands. He would make us beg for it back or act like fools for his amusement or tell him how awesome he was before he would return the ball. There were times when we complied and just went through the motions to get the ball back and there were times when we refused to play his game and everyone ignored him for the rest of the day. Either way, his antics did not work. We were not motivated to authentically meet his needs for attention and acknowledgement by his actions. We either faked it or ignored him.

So, what’s the every day application for us as adults? How does the Donnie experience translate from the playground to the living room? Easy. We all take turns being the Donnie and we all take turns being the upset girls in every relationship we have. We all have a ball of some sort – that implement necessary to achieve a fun-filled and satisfying life experience. For some it may be affection. For others it may be sex. For some it may be conversation. For others it may be receiving help from the other person. It doesn’t matter what your ball is, just know that your ball is; it exists and someone else has it. Hopefully he’s not a Donnie.

And hopefully you aren’t a Donnie either. Of course we all want others to play nice with us when it comes to our ball, but how are you in return? Do you grab the ball and walk away ignoring the fact that you are leaving the other person without their ball? Do you take it and hold it over your head to motivate the other person to meet your demands (like giving you your ball first)? If these tactics don’t work to motivate you to authentically meet their needs, then how do you expect them to work on others? If you don’t want the other person to fake it for you or to flat out ignore you, then you need to do something different.

You must find a way to deal with the Donnie’s in your life and then refrain from being a Donnie to others. If you take nothing else from this week’s message, remember this: You will never motivate another person to meet your needs by withholding theirs. So, keep the playground antics on the playground and be the one to serve the needs of others first.

Faith

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The revolution about which I speak, the revolution about which I advocate, and the revolution in which I live deeply entrenched was started by a carpenter, turned rabbi, charged criminal from Nazareth from a couple millennium ago. His life, his death, his resurrection changed everything. Utterly. Completely. Without equal.

And that change is still reverberating through history. It is still calling us to choose sides. Will we side with the man that died on the cross and then rose again after 3 days in the tomb? Or will we side with those that rejected him, humiliated him, and crucified him? To quote Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We have chosen our side. We are deeply committed to Jesus.

Everything that Jesus did was revolutionary. God come to Earth in the form of a baby – revolutionary. God living the life of a carpenter in Nazareth, a podunk town from back in the day – revolutionary. A Jew from Galilee teaching with authority, going among tax collectors (aka traitors) and prostitutes, speaking to Samaritan women who have been outcast by her own people, touching lepers, and performing miracles – revolutionary. God allowing himself to be falsely accused, mocked and ridiculed, tortured and abused, sacrificed and killed for the very people perpetrating these vile acts against him – revolutionary. A dead man rising back to life after 3 days proving true every crazy thing he ever said and fulfilling a mind-boggling amount of prophesy before rising up to heaven fully corporeal – revolutionary. God giving his Spirit to live inside and thereby transform those that choose him – revolutionary.

And this revolution was passed on to us – his people, his followers, his believers. We are to follow his example and live by his Spirit. We are to be transformed in our being and our doing. Our faith is revolutionary because we have God living in us. We have a direct connection to our God. Abiding in Christ and living by the Spirit changes everything. It changes how we do marriage. It changes how we raise our kids. It rearranges our priorities and then molds our lives around those priorities. It gives us a different calling and way of living than the rest of the world. That’s what makes it a revolution. It turns everything on its head.

So, now’s the time that you must make your choice. Are you with us or against us? There is no middle ground in this revolution. The two worlds are incompatible. The revolutionary puts others before himself. The revolutionary loves his enemies. The revolutionary gains strength through humility. The revolutionary finds power by surrendering everything to God’s will. The revolutionary seeks rewards that are eternal and often unseen to humanity. The revolutionary has a forever mindset in his faith, in his marriage, and in his parenting.

Sounds crazy, I know. But so did Jesus. It’s why he was crucified by his own people. You may very well be crucified by your own people too; branded a crazy person for joining this revolution. It’s not an easy road. But it’s worth it. This revolution is worth everything – the very price that was paid to start it. The door is open now. The cover charge has been paid. Are you ready to walk through it? Are you ready to join the revolution?

Faith, Family

Finding the Real Sunday School

My husband and I used to teach Sunday School to 3 year olds. We really enjoyed getting to know the kids and playing with them each Sunday morning. However, I quickly realized that for the vast majority of them, I was their only source of Bible teaching. I would ask the kids who Jesus was and only one or two would be able to say anything about him. I spoke with other volunteers who taught other grades and it was a consensus that the vast majority of kids coming to our church on Sunday mornings were only hearing about God and Jesus while they were at church. This shocked me because I considered some of the parents of these kids to be really strong Christians and even leaders within our church.

What I came to realize is that although these parents have a relationship with Christ, they felt completely inadequate to pass any of that onto their kids. They brought their kids to church so that the Bible teachers and pastors could distill a faith in Jesus to their children. I believe it is part of the institutionalization that has been taking place for the past few generations. If your kids are sick, take them to the doctor. If your kids need to learn how to read and write, take them to school. If your kids need to learn about Jesus, take them to church. The problem with this thinking is that it is ultimately the least efficient method for caring for the needs of our children.

Our kids are most influenced by us, their parents. It is our calling and our responsibility as stewards of these young souls to bring them up to be Jesus-loving, responsible adults. We can’t shuck that responsibility onto institutions, no matter how prestigious they may seem to be. These resources are there to support our work as parents, not circumvent it. We need to pick up the mantle that we accepted when we brought our children into the world. We need to be responsible for their overall well-being: mind, heart, body, soul.

Besides, if we are truly Christians, meaning Christ-followers, shouldn’t our faith permeate everything in our lives, including our parenting? More is caught than is taught when it comes to just about everything, so our kids will learn more about who Jesus is and how to have a relationship with Him by observing us in our prayers, Bible reading, meditation, worship, praise, service, and so on and so forth. If the only Jesus that your child gets is the one hour a week in church (and that’s if you go every week), then that is the funkiest hour of their week. We do not want Jesus to be the funky hour of their week. We want the Jesus-less hours to be the funky hours of their week.

To get down to brass tacks, how confident are you in the efficacy of anything that only has exposure 1/168 of the time? Add to that the fact that they are being taught by strangers or people they hardly know. The strength of that influence dwindles even more. God made you the parent. God entrusted you with the young soul that is in your care. He has asked you to bring your child up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4). Just imagine the faith that your child could develop if their life was immersed in Jesus and modeled after the most influential person in their life – you.

Faith, Marriage

The Greater Good

This afternoon my sons were watching the movie ‘The Incredibles’. My favorite scene is when one of the retired superheroes asks his wife where to find his super suit. She responds evasively leading him to a final exasperated appeal, “We’re talking about the greater good!” I love her answer: “Greater good? I am your wife! I am the greatest good you are ever going to get!” I realized today that my love for this scene goes beyond it being a very humorously performed scene. The reason I love it is because of her point. He is planning on ditching their evening together to serve the community without consulting her at all. Despite the urgency and the clear gravity of the situation (I mean, come on, a killer robot is destroying the city), he is losing perspective of what is really important. His community may need him and leaving his family to serve them may be ‘the greater good’, but his wife is, in fact, ‘the greatest good’ he will ever get. Being her husband is his highest calling after loving God, and everything else must take lower priorities-even when duty calls.

The reverse is true as well. Actually, I was pondering all of this as another scene from the movie came up that caught my attention. It is when the main characters, Mr. Incredible and Elasti-Girl, arrive to fight the killer robot and he attempts to leave her behind in order to keep her safe. Her response is “You are my husband and I go with you.” I love it. She is choosing him in that moment. She is supporting his efforts for ‘the greater good’ rather than feeling passed over because she is part of the process.

In real life, we aren’t superheroes fighting killer robots for the greater good, but we are still choosing other things that we have deemed important over our spouses way more often than is good for our marriages. The things that we are choosing are usually really good things: work, children, church, family. The things that we are choosing are sometimes things that can’t be done with our spouse. The point isn’t whether your spouse is there with you as you do these things. The choosing comes in your manner of thinking.

When you consider accepting a request, taking on another obligation, or signing up for a project, do you first think about the people asking or about yourself or about your family or about your spouse? In my humble opinion, I say that it should be your spouse. It goes without saying that I will think about myself, at least as far as my availability and interest in the situation, but if I am ‘one’ with my husband then he should be right there in that consideration. I will be thinking in terms of ‘we’ instead of just in ‘me’. It doesn’t matter the significance of the request, even if it would be in service of the ‘the greater good’, I need to remember that my spouse is ‘the greatest good’ I am ever going to get and choose him above anything else.

Marriage

The Whole Oneness Thing

Having grown up in the Church, I have been exposed to pretty much every Bible story there is. And it seems as though there is always a part that leaves me scratching my head, thinking “How does that work, exactly?” Moses and the Red Sea. Jonah and the big fish. Daniel and the lions. Jesus walking on water. Most of them don’t have a tangible implication on my life, so I take them at face value as stories on faith. I don’t see myself needing to understand the mechanics of getting the Red Sea to open up for me, or how to survive in a whale for three days, or how to chill out with hungry lions for a sleepover, or how to walk out to a boat on the middle of a lake.

But, what about the stories that do have a real implication and leave me guessing as to how it is supposed to work? Take Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 as an example. Genesis 2:24 says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Now, Adam was made full-grown. He didn’t have any parents that he had to leave. He was able to go straight to union with his wife. This verse is for our benefit, so we know how this marriage thing is supposed to work. Step one, wave good-bye to the folks. Check. Step two, be united with your spouse. Double check. Step three, become one flesh. Huh? How does that work, exactly?

Unfortunately, reading the rest of Adam and Eve’s story doesn’t provide us with much direction on achieving that whole oneness thing. Instead it tells you how to mess it up, which is by sinning. But, it is not a lesson for getting it right. It takes reading the rest of God’s story to understand what is involved in living in a state of oneness with a spouse. Yep, I mean the whole Bible. Okay, so maybe reading the highly detailed instructions for building the traveling sanctuary for Israel’s wilderness wanderings doesn’t give us a whole lot of help, but even in there we get a valuable lesson. Follow God’s instructions and you will get it right.

So what are God’s instructions? Jesus boiled them all down to two. “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mark 12:30-31) If you can get those two down, then you’re golden. Especially in your marriage. Love God and love your spouse more than yourself.

I know that I just left you scratching your head, thinking “How does that work, exactly?” Just keep reading Jesus’ story because He gave us some awesome examples of what love looks like in action. Do it like Jesus and you will be doing it right. If you are looking for specifics on the ins and outs of the daily mechanics of faith and marriage, it will take much more than this blog post to cover all that. As it happens though, I will be teaching on these very things at an upcoming couples retreat in June. It would be great to see you there and together wrestle with applying some of those head-scratching-inducing Scriptures on marriage.


Something is missing from your faith, marriage and family…