Fearful Kids

Here are some verses to pray over and with your children when they are afraid....

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you..." Isaiah 43:5

"Don’t be afraid; just believe.” Mark 5:36

"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." 2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

"They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord." Psalm 112:7

When my older children were babies I had a Scripture CD that I played in their bedrooms at night. One of the songs was based on Psalm 56:3, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You...." I remember trying to backward tiptoe out of the nursery while this song played. In the toddler and preschool years that followed I could silence my children's fears with my protective efforts. But they are old enough now to know that I can't always protect them and my platitudes of "it won't happen...." just don't ring true. There has to be more to comfort them and protect them. I have felt the frustration as every coping mechanism and Truthful word and comforting touch I offer bounces off of my child's fear as if she were wearing immovable armor and I was tossing handfuls of cotton candy.

With the tornado devastation so near us this week, and the recent repeating stories of shootings and violence against young women and children; fear is creeping in again. I expected it to hit hard yesterday as we watched the hour by hour coverage of the tornadoes in Moore. I tried to give my husband code signals to change the channel as they began to broadcast the horrible reality that children had died; unsafe in their school {which is THE big fear for one of my kids}. My husband missed my cues, but my child didn't simply saying, "It's ok Mom, you don't have to hide it from me." Later I wondered why it was better and easier this time....why this child was able to go to sleep....why the only tears shed were my own as I tucked in three children safe and sound in their beds.  

Had she simply finally outgrown her fears? Partially. But then I remembered that a couple of months ago, this child and I figured out a way to study and share God's words together. For the last several weeks God's Words have been read and considered daily by this young heart and so when fear struck she was better able to deal with it; maybe for the first time.

I realized this Truth, the day to prepare your child to battle fear is not on the day of crisis; but in the everyday discipline and habit of hearing and believing God.

That little stack of books on her bedside table are the guides and God is both her destination and her traveling companion. I want to be one of the ones pointing her to Him both in the way I live and the way I encourage her. As you and I are figuring out how to parent our children through such difficult loss and unanswerable questions; we need wisdom. 

So, I will say "I don't know why." I will be patient.  I will creatively point my children to the right belief and thoughts on easy days. And on crisis days I will be honest and vulnerable and present in their grief and my own and our neighbors'. I will serve and believe the best in people, including my kids. I will start there and continue there, and I will be thankful and "When I am afraid, I will trust in You...."

Tuesday Train Wreck

I have a Bible Study group that I adore. I teach--facilitate--vent to----- (the description of what happens in this group can change from week to week).  We share...truly share our lives in struggle and in growth. It is a unique place to be heard and accepted exactly as you are even while being challenged to do the hard work it takes to prune and grow a life that really matters. 

I love them.

So.

Much.
You should come.

Since January we have been doing a study on temperaments that has been kinda funny, but also really eye-opening in a gut-punched kind of way. I wanted us to grow in our understanding of how God created us and what He expects for us to do with our God-given strengths and our flesh-drenched weaknesses. Although the content of our study was God-sent, my attitude was very teachery with just a hint of pride...some of you can imagine where this train might be headed. We finished our study with a three week look into the Fruit of the Spirit as taught in Galatians 5:21-25. It goes like this.....

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance (patience), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Galatians 5:21-25, NIV 

We had a great first week studying through love, joy, and peace. And then came week two. I studied about patience and kindness and goodness and was ready to teach what I had learned. My notes were printed out neatly and sweetly tucked into my folder in my church bag, ready to be hauled up to Bible Study happiness Wednesday morning. Imagine skipping, that was Tuesday morning.

Only Tuesday afternoon happened first and that train I mentioned is about to de-rail, so hold on.

My husband and son were out of town where my son was playing in a tennis tournament that was going poorly {they would use stronger, less Momma-ish adjectives meaning really BAD}. I was getting text updates and felt helpless in the face of my son's frustration and guilty for not being there. I pressed on and went to pick up my daughters from school. One hit me hard with demands and expectations before her beautiful little fanny even hit the seat of the mini-van. I quickly realized that we were not going to be on the same page and my idea of a little "girls' night" while dad and brother were away was not going to satisfy. We survived the 5 minute drive home only to really face off in the kitchen. Did you know your kids can hurt your feelings? In one honest yet badly delivered sentence I found myself both shamed by the truth of what she said and wounded by the way she said it. So I did what any 12 year old would do; and defended myself! {Anyone see the problem with that last statement? Yeah. I didn't for about an hour}.

I left my older daughter pouting and went on with my younger daughter to walk with some friends. As I was pounding the pavement I began to remember some of the Truth about patience, kindness, and goodness I'd just learned. I was humbled and ready to make things right as I headed home.

Only Tuesday evening happened first and that train that was coming off the rails crashed in a fiery heap.

My younger daughter got mad on the way home and threw a giant colossal car fit. As I was driving home I must've looked like I was having a seizure to other drivers because of how hard she was kicking the back of my seat. And I was sweating profusely since I'd had to chase her down INSIDE my mini-van to get her buckled up. She can go "boneless" like no kid you've ever seen.....seriously impossible to pick up. By the time we got home the "act your age and be the MOM not the 12 year-old" lesson I had just learned had completely evaporated along with every single shred of self-restraint. The end of this day had crushed me completely. And see, that's not a bad place for someone who believes what I believe. For weeks I had been teaching that we cannot transform our weaknesses on our own.  For weeks I had been teaching that when we fill our efforts with self-strength our families, marriages, and ministries are the ones most hurt by our powerless frustration. For weeks I had been teaching that real change takes Jesus, submitting to Him and allowing Him to fill us up with new stuff, foreign to us but completely made of God. So if I really believed what I'd been teaching for weeks, a "crushed flat, totally empty of my own failed efforts" kind of day should've been an opportunity, right? Well, instead of acknowledging the opportunity crushing emptiness provided, I came up swinging with self. And in my own frail strength I took out everyone in sight. Not with my fists, but with my self-righteous criticism, hateful words, and then angry silence. Anyone else ever shocked to find this is the only way self is strong?

And yet we all {miraculously, probably because Daddy came home} survived to face another day.

And I woke up thinking about the Bible Study coming up in a few hours....and my heart for the first time ever was filled with "I absolutely can't go to Bible Study" dread. As I looked around at the train wreck my efforts had created the day before I could still smell smoke. I planned all the ways I could change the lesson including some weird craft project that was really just coloring pages made spiritual. I couldn't figure it out without lying about having some made up disease, so I just faced it head on with great trepidation. Why the trepidation? Because as often as I make mistakes and am open about them with my ladies (often); I have never stood before them having completely, literally, word-by-word failed in every syllable of what I've prepared to say in the mere hours before it's time to share it with them.

This is how Galatians 5:19-21 describes a life lived in the flesh. Don't gloss over this, consider it. Lots of it felt familiar to me that morning.

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.
I could go on..." Galatians 5:19-21 Message

I went to Bible Study and stood up and told them I was struggling and prayed all wobbly-voiced wobbly-kneed and then started teaching. Below are my notes without many comments; just copied and pasted from my Tuesday morning lesson before the Tuesday night train-wreck. Unless you've slept through this post, you'll see the connections.

Patience "Makrothumia" in Greek means “patience, a self-restraint of the mind before it gives room to action or passion; forbearance, long-suffering. The person who has power to avenge himself, yet refrains from the exercise of this power. It is patience with respect to persons while "hupomone" or endurance is patience toward things or circumstances. Makrothumia is associated with mercy and is used of God. Hupomone is inspired by hope while makrothumia is inspired by mercy. "The believer is to exercise mercifulness, for he can feel compassion for the misery of sin upon others....“Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt 5:7). Spirit-led makrothumia comes out in my lack of judgment toward others; in my abundance of forgiveness, in my extension into the life of another person and my patience as I wait for them to repent.

Kindness "Chrestotes" in Greek means "kindness. It is joined to philanthropia – human friendship. It means forbearance, to overlook; and is the opposite of "opotomia" which means severity or cutting something short and quickly. It is the grace which pervades the whole nature, mellowing all which would have been harsh and austere.” 

Goodness "Agathosune" in Greek means “active goodness. It is more than chrestotes (kindness), a mellowing of character. It is character energized expressing itself in active good. Thus chrestotes in action is agathosune.” 
Kindness in action is goodness. 

Do you see how impossible it is? After I taught these words and we looked at other passages that just further confirmed the beauty of a patient, kind, good woman I told my Tuesday story of the opposite. My heart and voice were broken as I shared; not because I had a bad day {almost every woman in my class faces more difficult circumstances DAILY, that isn't the point} but because my heart was genuinely broken that I am so powerless, that my best efforts are so empty, and that I can so quickly disregard such beautiful grace-filled Truth. I saw the faces of these women who love me and I knew that some of them had already tuned out the powerful words we'd just studied in light of my sadness, and were moving on to planning what comfort casseroles they would bring me and when they could kidnap me for coffee or surprise me with skittles in the carline at school and what is it she always orders at Sonic?.....

I didn't want comfort, I wanted Him. And I was convinced anew and more than ever before that He is the only way. I was both humbly horrified by my behavior and freshly grateful for His strength that defies my own. And that desperation is why I shared with them and why I am trying to work up the courage to hit "publish" on this quite raw blog post. I want Tuesday's disaster to open my eyes and theirs and yours to the paradox of "Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal." 
John 12:24-25, MSG

Resolute dying to self and reckless living to God isn't popular and it isn't intuitive; so often it feels backward. But it is TRUE and it is FRUITFUL and it is SATISFYING. Take heart when you have a Tuesday train wreck, because it provides the opportunity to bury self and come up fruitful, and in that little nugget is the seed of Hope for each of us. Be encouraged, when you are weak He is strong and that is enough.

These are all phone pics taken on fun less "Train-Wrecky" days.
Blessed beyond what I deserve!

The definitions for patience, kindness, and goodness came from The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament, 1991 Spiros Zodhiates.

Agape Mom

Have you ever heard the word Agape?
It's Greek for unconditional love.....I love to teach about it, I wrote about it here a few years ago.
Here's the definition in my Bible Dictionary...

From The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament, by Spiros Zodhiates, page 878.

This was life-changing for me when I learned that God's unconditional love doesn't mean that He always does what I want. I began to learn to cut out the manipulation prayers {I promise I will________, if YOU will __________ }. I began to stop letting little bits of the lie that bad things, slow things, uncomfortable things in my life meant that God's love was conditional or worse, insufficient or inattentive, have place. I found comfort in the boundary that God loves me for my best. Period. So, I've applied this lesson as the child being loved by the parent. This week I learned to apply this lesson as the parent loving the child. When it comes down to it, will I love my kids for their best even when they don't want that?

I like to be liked.

As I began to realize that I had allowed some safe boundaries in our family to get a little bit too broad, I knew what I needed to do. The knowing wasn't the hard part, the doing was. Little crops of entitlement and selfishness had grown up in the lives of my children because I hadn't been disciplined enough to keep them out of my own yard.  And pulling them up was easily the right thing until my teenaged kids were standing over them, guarding.

I'm usually a pretty decisive mother. I won't make a decision about vacation or where to eat or what color couch to buy.....but when it comes to discipline and my kids, I'm pretty swift and sure. Until they turned into teenagers. 

• Could it be the knowledge that young adult grown-up life is just around the corner has robbed me of confidence?  
• Could it be fear of losing their childhood favor has made me wary to confront? 
• Could it be regret over mistakes made and lessons untaught has slowed my zeal for creative instruction?
• There are lots of "could it bes"....and they were kicking my tail.

And then I remembered Agape {Benevolent} Love, 

"Its benevolence, however, is not shown by doing what the person loved {teenager} desired but what the one who loves {parent} deems as needed by the one loved {child}..."

So we had the hard talk, and set the safe boundaries, and answered the honest questions, and made the necessary apologies, and walked away secure knowing we are LOVED.

Sweet mommas reading this; stay true to His course. Receive His benevolent love so that you can pass it along to your children.....they don't always want it, but they need it so much and there is no substitute. 

Be Loved so that you can love your beloveds well.

Let Her Sit

I was so encouraged this week.  A friend stopped me and told me she was ready for me to do a new blog post...."I checked and it's still pudding."  Pudding is important, but there is chance there are more important things in life (slight, but still a chance).  Her request made my day.  I told her that there are so many things that bounce around in my head and heart that I would love to write about.....but so few actually make it here.  This last Sunday was one of those sweet personal lessons that I hesitate to even share because I have no confidence that I can articulate it in a way that is meaningful, but still; I'll try.

If any of you follow me on twitter, I tweeted recently complaining about taking my youngest to Big Church.  My Sunday schedule has taken a recent overhaul which has included switching from a traditional service {which I loved} to a contemporary service {also love} and from teaching youth Sunday School {loved it for over 5 years} to college Sunday School {love so very very much}.  You see my problem, lots of love but also lots of change. Good or bad, Transition always has Stress as a sidekick.  Add into this the realization that it's time for my 5 year old to start going to Big Church {don't love} and Sundays got super stressful. 

Here are my tweets about this particular experience:

"Perk of 10 years between oldest and youngest; knowing 5yo big church torture becomes teenage real God worship."

"Week 2 of Anna stays for church...never woulda let the bigs sit in the floor. #choosinmybattles" It included this picture...

What I wanted to tweet on Week 3 and 4 breaks my "no negative venting on social media" rule.  But it woulda had something to do with being spread eagle on the floor and bad sewer breath being blown in my face. It might've included this hashtag; #wannabarf

Here are our Big Church Rules:

• Be quiet.
• Go potty before church because we are NOT leaving during the service.
• Stand up next to Mommy during the music at the beginning.
• When, and only when, Dad starts preaching you can get into your church bag.
• Stay in your seat (this one is open for interpretation, obviously).

Week 4 had gone so badly that I was digging my heels in for a fight.  These are good rules folks, I'm not hearing one single joke about any of my kids being "that preacher's kid" because they are misbehaving. I won't have that. (So you're seeing my starting point here).

I had fought her through every single song the week before because I made her stand up with me and she was doing the "wet noodle my legs don't work" passive aggressive thing; actually it's not very passive at all. 

So Week 5, the lights go down and the people all stand up and I turn to force her up and I hear very clearly, "Let her sit."  I paused and waited. This was the Spirit.  I asked her to stand and she wouldn't and I felt it again, "Let her sit and pray for her." After a short argument with myself involving a brilliant though half-hearted defense of Rule 3 and an equally brilliant "pppphffffftttt" I let it go.  I whispered into her ear instead...."I love being here at church, this is the time when I get to sing to Jesus about how I love Him. I would love for you to sing with me."

And I just began to sing and worship without her even while I was praying for her.  She sat next to me quietly and before the first song was over I felt her hand in mine.  She let me hold her and she started singing with me. Beautiful. My beautiful parenting stories are so few, that I wanted to point and shout and tweet but instead I marveled.  I let her sit, I prayed, and she joined me on her own.  Now...just keeping it real, she was also pulling my earrings and since she doesn't know the songs yet she sang this ugly monotone version of word endings as she tried to mimic what she heard. 

But she was singing.  

Because she chose to sing, not because I forced her.

I thought of how God handles me.  He invites me and does His thing and never forces me.  But the more I get to know Him the more irresistible He is.  I grow frustrated and independent and pull away and He whispers "Let her sit".  But as I watch Him and His people, I find my hand in His because I belong there.  He is home. My contribution may be an ugly monotone version as I just try to keep up, but that's OK.  His kindness leads me there (Romans 2:4).  He miraculously changes my hard heart into a soft responsive one as He encourages me.

There are so many parenting lessons in this experience.  How often I force my children into a behavior expecting it to motivate their hearts with only disappointing results.  God is after their hearts just as He has pursued mine, so I think I'll spend a little bit more time cooperating with Him there....praying while I let her sit.

"Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or fret your children [do not be hard on them or harass them], 

lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated. 

[Do not break their spirit.]" 

Colossians 3:21 Amplified Version

"And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh..." Ezekiel 11:19

A Grown Up Bedtime Devotion Lesson

Don't you love how you plan out lessons to teach your child and God gently reminds you of the lessons that still need learning in your own life?  (I totally started that sentence out to be sarcastic, but am smiling as I realize that I really do love it; there is such joy in being loved enough to be corrected with intentional grace).

This is a short excerpt from a bedtime devotion time with my youngest this week.....who is 4.....and the most imaginative child EVAH!

“Eve….Eve, wake up,” the gentle voice

[This is a BIBLE?]

{Well, it’s a book that tells the stories of the Bible.}

gentle voice whispered.  “Who is it? Who’s there? Eve mumbled stretching her arms and wiggling her toes for the very

[Sometimes I chew my toes.]

{That is super sick and utterly disgusting, don’t do that anymore.}

for the very first time.  Eve stretched again and sat up.  When she opened her eyes she couldn’t believe

[Is that water?]

{No, I think it’s just a little road in the Garden of Eden, but I’m not sure why they have a road in the Garden of Eden. Maybe it’s just a path.}

she couldn’t believe what she saw. Carefully trying her brand-new legs Eve ran through the garden, touching things for the very first time.  Suddenly she glanced behind her

[I was good mostly tonight at Cubbies, but a little bit bad.]

{Really?  Why were you bad?}

[Now is that water?]

{Yes, that’s the waterfall that God is showing Eve. How were you bad?}

[Eve and Adam ate the apple and God told them NO but they ate it anyway and got in big trouble.]

 Insert entire MUCH NEEDED teaching moment on obedience 

here during which we totally lost our place.

Wow, she’s pretty Adam whispered.  Yes she is. And she will be a better friend for you than the animals are.  She can talk and

[Look those two birds are in love and so are the Adam and Eve!]

Prayer time….. [ABCDEFG, Thank you God for loving me. I’ll be good and do nice. Amen.]

{Thank you God for this precious daughter and for your patience with me.  I’ve grown tired and impatient with her and expected her to react like I do instead of exactly like she should as a 4-year-old learning about life and family and friendship and You.  Help me to show the same patience toward her that you show to me, welcoming her distractions and interruptions as the gifts they are and as the reminders they are of grace and beauty and humor and faith.  Strengthen me in my weakness to give my kids the best of me and not the leftover - in instruction and energy and affection and example.}

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