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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

Grace for Parents

This week has really challenged me as a parent. I just got done preaching about grace for parents, and I’m already having a difficult time giving and receiving grace. We have a sick child, who has felt ill for several days. We are taking this one to the doctor this week, but this child likes everyone to know they are sick, like all the time…they want us all to feel their pain…and the attention well it is clamored for by hook or by crook. In the midst of this, the fight for D and I is belief…not just belief in the Gospel, but belief that our child is not crying wolf…is this sickness just being caused by anxiety, by the constant thinking about it, the attention to it or need of it? Could I just give this child a sugar pill and watch it disappear? In the middle of this pain, I try to fix the child. I use lots of fear tactics to try to scare my kids straight. Like, do you want to get an MRI? That will scare them straight, so I say it…nah, it just makes them cry. When that doesn’t work, I try compassion, but often it has a “means to an end” feel about it. I am being compassionate to just bring this misery to an end. What to do? I have grown tired of the groans, the fights, the fits, and the anger. Tired of my lack of compassion. Tired of my inability to fix it. Gosh I want to fix it, for my sake more than the child’s. I just want it gone. I want this to end. Not a banner week, needless to say. My heart has been exposed. I want control and peace…comfort and rest. But where am I going to find it? Myself. My plans. My schemes. Mr. Fix-it man strikes again.

Maybe you find yourself in similar places as a parent. Maybe you vacillate between “having it all together” parenting and “I’m drunk” parenting. Maybe you want to fix your kids. Maybe you want to have compassion but don’t, want to be interested, but aren’t. Maybe you don’t really know or aren’t really sure, because you have checked out. You have withdrawn to more controllable enclaves. Places where there is the smell of peace, the allure of rest, but when you walk out of that space, whether it be work, the gym, nature, your man cave, you don’t feel rested or peaceful at all, but more anxious, more aware of your own failure. Parenting does expose. It shows us our idols. Often the little four-year-old face or the approving glances of the Chick-fil-A helper who says, “My, what a nice family you have.” That feels good, even though you know you just totally yelled at one of your kids not 30 seconds before the sweet lady dropped sweat tea in your cup and sweet words in your ear. Parenting exposes. And it is meant to. It is meant to be joyful and fun and full of life too. But it is meant to sanctify us, to remind us that we aren’t in control, that we have to rely on God, the church, our families to help us in the midst of the chaos that is often family life.

Jesus told the Pharisees that they search the Scriptures (this being the Law and Prophets) hoping to find life, but oh that you would come to me, and see that I am the one that brings life. We do the same things with our little guru children. Our mini-me’s, our immortality symbols…we seek out glory from them, in them, through them…they are the way, the truth and the life…and Jesus says, oh that you would come to me and look for life. Life is bound up in him.

Have you ever had your daughter wake up with tangled hair? Blakley used to rub her hair on the side of her head right by her ear and temple. She would then play with her belly button and drift off into la-la land. But when she awoke the next morning, her hair was a wrangled mess. We would spend our morning, carefully and sometimes not so carefully combing out the tangles. It was painful for her and for us. As parents we are tangled up in the mess of home life…parenting and marriage. Some nights it’s a soothing lullaby for our souls. We connect, we relate, we serve and help…but then in the morning…Blah! What the heck happened to this sweet child over night? Sometimes the opposite is true. We wrestle and fight all through the night. Our little groms climb into bed with us, and kick and fuss us out of our sleep cycles and beds, and then the morning comes…a new day…sweet cuddles…mercy. You see we are tangled up with them and we are tangled up in grace. We often fight it. We often try to fix it before needing it… try turning to other things before relying on it. We have dark nights and dark mornings, but then grace comes. It can be from God’s sweet words reminding you of the grace upon grace that comes with Jesus, or the promised rest offered to us in Jesus; it could be the note from a friend; the sharing of mommy stories and confessions, the listening, the praying; it could be the resilience of your little after a night of sickness and fighting; it could be the tender moment of honesty with your teen; or the return of a prodigal child…but our world is tangled in grace, and parenting reminds us both of our need of it, our child’s need of it and our resistance to it. Like little children resisting having our hair combed straight, we resist the grace offered to us, but God is resilient, He keeps coming with grace upon grace…life bound up, tangled up in Him. Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.