There are those days when you haven't gotten enough sleep, and your children haven't gotten enough sleep, and you have already gone *way* way over your imaginary quota of how much TV they will watch, and it's not even 11:30 am yet.
Those days when you realize that your kids really have needed *constant* redirection, but you really just don't want to have to be nice any dang more times.
Thoughts run through your head like, "Can't you please just have one rational thought, you 3-year-old, you?!" Who am I kidding? You start saying things like that to your children.
Le great big sigh. Poor you.
I got some pretty simple, yet really sound advice from a mom-friend of mine the other day. She says that sometimes she tries to see her kids in the same light as God sees us. Our children are pretty pathetic sometimes. They can't negotiate going to the bathroom without serious fanfare and intervention, let alone the intricate delicacies of getting a younger brother to let go of their hair or to give back a treasured (aka ALL of them) toy. Pathetic.
Yet, take a step back, and we're just as feeble. We can't cope with disasters, we can't relate properly with people, we fall apart when we fail--we are pitiful little creatures, aren't we?
This outlook has helped me immensely, though. Even in the heat of the 78th "let-go-of-your-brother's-hair" moment, I can remember that I myself am so very small, and need so much direction too. I need constant reminding, and poking, and prodding to stay on the right track, to choose the good, and to draw closer to holiness.
Putting it this way helps me to have a little more patience, to move with a little more grace, with the meager everyday efforts of my small ones. I myself need such mercy, as He's reminding me all the time.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor.12:9)
Love you
ReplyDeleteSo true.
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