Lately there have been a lot of blogs going around Facebook
about giving grace to little kids in church, or how parenting toddlers is like managing little dictators. Those are all good words and great advice, and I’ll
be the first to stand and applaud when they are said. It’s hard being a parent.
It’s often lonely and frustrating and I always feel like I’m getting at least
half of it wrong. But it’s one thing for me to look at a struggling friend and
say, “Hey, it’s ok. He’s fine. He’s a kid! You’re doing great!” – it’s quite
another for me to say that to myself. I’ll be the first to give grace to
another’s child that is screaming in the floor, but I rarely give it to
myself.
Since our second boy has been born, we’ve been struggling
with his big brother. My big boy is a three year old, rambunctious, loud, strong-willed,
too-smart-for-his-own-good kid on a normal day. When you add in the turmoil of
emotions that older siblings experience with the birth of a new baby, it gets
crazy REAL fast. We are working through these things. But even before our
current turmoil, I caught myself projecting my own insecurities onto my kid. If
he had a less than stellar report at school or acted up at church, or maybe
didn’t play so nice at the playground – I took credit for that. I wore that on
my shoulders. I’m not disciplining right. I’m not controlling my kid. If he had
a great day, I also took credit for that. I saw this “mothering list” from LysaTerkeurst awhile back and thought it was great advice:
1. Don’t take too much credit for their good.
2. Don’t take too much credit for their bad.
3. Don’t try to raise a good child. Raise a
God-following adult.
I thought I was following this, but I wasn’t. I was trying so
hard to shove my child into a “perfection mold”, the very same mold I always
try to shove myself into and never succeed. I didn’t realize it until today
when I picked him up from church camp. We’ve been working on good behavior and
not acting out. I told his teachers that he was going through the adjustment
with the new baby. But I could tell he was stressing them out. I could tell his
behavior had been less than stellar. Maybe they weren’t used to boys. Maybe
they had expectations that were a little unfounded. These ladies are
volunteering their time at a church camp so whatever the dynamic, I want to
give them some grace. They don’t know my child and haven’t been in our home.
With trepidation today I picked him up and as he ran to me with a big smile on
his face, I saw the teacher with a not big smile on her face behind him. My
heart fell. As I had to tell him he didn’t “do good”, his face collapsed. My
face collapsed. We both walked out in tears.
In my quiet time last night I came upon the story of Jesus
telling his disciples to “let the little children come unto me.” There is an
account of the story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so obviously this was an
important moment. Here is the account from Mark:
People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his
hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When
Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let
the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God
belongs to such as these.” Mark 10:13-14
In my head for all these years, I’ve pictured that scene as something
like this – Jesus is seated, possibly surrounded by a halo of light, and
mothers are bringing their children to Jesus. The children are sweet, clean,
quiet, and patiently waiting in line. Sort of like Santa Claus, but
better. The mothers are patient. The
children are cherubs. It’s possible choirs of angels are singing softly in the
background. And obviously the disciples, who are always screwing up, are just
children hating jerks.
As I read this, now that I’m a mom, I realized it probably didn’t
look like that at all. Maybe Jesus was teaching, and the kids were crying.
Maybe the disciples were afraid he would be distracted by mothers correcting
their kids, shushing their babies. Maybe one kid was fighting with his
brother and wiped a booger on one of the disciples’ robes. Maybe someone
whined, “Is it my turrrnnnn yet??” Probably someone said, “I’m HUNGRY mom!!
Did you bring any snacks?” And for sure
someone yelled, “I need to go potty!!” It was probably hot, and everyone was sweaty,
and tired, and definitely cranky. Some of the moms may have yelled, some may have cried in frustration.
To me, that’s a more realistic picture. Jesus was just some guy their
parents wanted them to meet. Children aren’t born with a sense of reverence and
understanding of God like we think they should be, at least mine weren’t. If
they were then babies would never cry during baptisms, toddlers would never
throw things in church, and my niece wouldn’t have loudly announced during the
Thanksgiving prayer one year, “I don’t WANT to talk to Jesus!!!”
What I love about this is in the midst of all this, Jesus rebukes not
the children, but the disciples as they try to send the children away. He says,
“Let the little children come to me.” And they come, just as they are. Don’t you know some of them cried as he held
them? Don’t you wonder if a baby spit up on him? I know at least one of them
was shy and hid behind her mother’s skirts and refused to get in his lap. Yet
he loved on them, and blessed them, and said that they would inherit the
Kingdom of God. He said we should all be like them. We should all be real - we
should all be who we are. After all, it’s how he made us.
I don’t mean to say that children don’t need correcting and
discipline. I’m not about to stop shushing my child in church, or taking away
privileges if he hits or kicks. And heaven save me from the tattling! But I want
to stop expecting my child to be perfect, and by extension, expecting that I
have to be perfect. I’m not. I’m just a mom, struggling to do this right. And
he’s just a kid, experiencing a big world that’s exciting and scary and always
changing. And if I always beat him down and never tell him good job, he’s going
to be more and more afraid of it. He’s going to start to feel like who he is
isn’t right somehow. And I’d rather get a thousand bad reports than do that to
him. There is a time and a place for correction, and there is a time and a
place for just letting your kids come to you, and telling them you love them. God
created my son to be headstrong, and rambunctious. Someday those talents will
serve him well. While I need to teach him to respect authority and how to live
in our social world, how to play well with others, he doesn’t have to get it
down pat at age 3. He is who he is because my God created him, knit him in my womb
and knows the number of hairs on his head. He loves Sammy. He loves me. I’m
pretty sure he knows we’re not perfect.
I sometimes wish that the bible had more details. I’d love to know
what it was really like the day those children were waiting to see Jesus. But
at least in this case, I know why God chose to let those tidbits be left out.
Can you imagine if your child was immortalized in the Bible as the one who
threw a tantrum at the feet of Jesus?! God loves us moms too much to do that to
us. He doesn’t see tantrum throwers, he sees children, whom he loves so much he
calls us all to have faith just as they do, even when this happens at the family photo shoot:
