Parenting Conundrum

I was confronted with a parenting conundrum last week.  One of my kids was sick and stayed home for two days.  I hate for my kids to be sick, for real.  I waited on this child hand and foot, brought them snocones and food and popsicles and medicine and movies and pillows and blankets.....you get the picture. I picked up every piece of trash dropped on the floor next to the couch where they lay.  I picked up every sock and pajama pulled off when they were hot.  I picked up every empty dish and returned with another one full.  I fussed over their fever and general "feeling yuckiness."  I felt guilty when I had to leave them to go take care of other responsibilities.  I did all of this, mostly with ease because it is my joy and a role I relish to care for my children.  

At the end of this child's first day of sickness, they hugged me and thanked me for taking care of them.  It was sweet and precious, and just melted my mommy heart.

And tempted me to bend right down and pick these up when I walked past this scene on our first day back in "Fit as a Fiddle"-land.

These clothes are laying on the doormat in our garage; dropped here as my once sick now well child had to change out items in their gym bag in a rush to make it to school on time after two days home sick.  You know this doormat? The one everyone, EVERYone in our family has to step on every time, EVERY time we enter our home.  We've been stepping over these clothes for a couple of days now, and I am really tempted to pick them up.


But I won't.  Because as much as part of me would love to do everything for my kids, make their lives easy and cozy and painless; that's not what they need.  We labor through ridiculous lessons of hygiene and basic life skills with often nauseating repetition because these children are growing up into adults who need to know how to manage their lives. 


I ponder sometimes how God must handle this same conundrum.  He could make my life easy.  He could stop and pick up every mess I make and guide me through life with emotional snocones and spiritual carnivals.  Truth is, He delights to mother me through my sick days (Isaiah 66:13), but He loves me too much to let me live an entire life undisciplined.  There are so many things that surprise me about parenting, so many mistakes I make, so much confusion.  Mothering is THE thing in this life I am most insecure about, simply because it matters so much to me and I feel so inadequate to do it well.  But, I've been learning about inadequacy and am learning to be ok with it only as it makes me rely on Him all the more (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).


Maybe today you are in a bit of a funk toward God's unwillingness to pick your jeans up off the garage floor. Can you hear me encourage you to feel the affection of His heart toward you while trusting Him to instruct you and empower you to become the disciplined grown up child of God He had in mind before the beginning of time?  We can do the work of spiritual discipline because we are constantly watched over by a perfect, tender, affectionate Heavenly Father.

"My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either. It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.

God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God."

Hebrews 12:7-11 The Message