Give them hurdles!
I was listening to this mum-pair who make really funny Youtube videos about the truth of being a parent. This time it was all on laying off feeling guilty because your kids 'go through stuff'. They were making light of the ridiculous guilt we feel if we dare take pre-bought cake or cookies to the bake sale, or refuse to go back for the lunch box that was forgotten at home after the reminder that morning... Their point was, stop feeling bad about things that happen that make us feel like bad moms. They hilariously listed off all the influential people they could, making the point that nearly none of them came from two parent homes, from wealth and privilege, from ideal childhoods all of them came through some kind of hardship and in the end, it was a gift. The gift of resilience that pressing through hard times gives to kids, resilience being the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.
I laughed my head off and then went away and thought about the profound truth in that. Not that I can relate to any sort of 'mum guilt' for some of the petty things they rattled off that may be an issue for some people, but to be honest, I could care less what people thought of me if I rocked up with store-bought, bakery items for a bake sale... but the point is deeper than that.
It got me thinking, because in us, as mums is an innate protective instinct that wants to do everything in our power to save our precious babies (no matter how old) from hardship and pain. I whole-heartedly believe that is a God-given instinct, seen on display even in the animal kingdom. There are no boundaries on a mother's love, no lengths she won't go to, to protect her own.
The dilemma we face is that in life is that so much is out of our control. We can make our own choices to an extent but we cannot control what happens in our lives, the start we had in life, what people do to us or events that occur that have life-altering ramifications in our lives. It is so easy to allow fear to creep in, that little lying voice that whispers in our ears, laying out for us all the paths of failure that our kids are going to walk down because of things we've done or things that have happened in their lives. How often do we entertain those voices? How often do we allow our minds to walk the dark path down fear's way. Now I'm not talking about 'not going back for the lunchbox' situations now. I'm talking about the big things in life that happen to us, because of us or to our families, the things that we want to extract our kids from, pick them up and plant them safely, untouched, on the other side. Whether it's losing a loved one, a divorce, a family crisis, a financial crisis in the family, bullying at school; life is full of situations that aren't fair and we just wish we could save our kids from. And when we can't, that is when mum-guilt can come in. That is when we can slip into fear. Or faith.
You see I thought further and was immediately confronted with the fact that we, as parents, often pray for our kids to be like Daniel. To be unwavering and influential. We forget that the process of him possessing his destiny, involved a very messy situation of his whole nation being captured and him being taken away from family and friends as a young man, to a heathen nation and held basically as a prisoner.
We pray so readily for our kids to have favour on their life, like Joseph. We just aren't so ready to pray for the process that he went through to be able to stand in a place of authority, as a leader of a nation. We would give our own lives to make sure our children weren't thrown into a pit and then into prison after being wrongly accused.
David is another example, a man who had a heart after God, I pray this too, for my children. That they'd be like David. We forget that this heart for God was forged as a result of basically being rejected by his earthly father. He was out tending the sheep and all but overlooked and forgotten when the prophet sent for Jesse's sons. Not even counted among them, was David. Yet it was in those years of solitude that David got a revelation of God, developed his strength and skill as a warrior and came to know God in a way that would set him up to rule as King.
Lovely Ruth, the one who married wealthy Boaz who ended up being in the very lineage of Jesus because of her life of devotion. How we pray and desire our daughters to be like her. Forgetting all the while that she was a widow. Her husband died and she had to leave her people and go to a foreign land with her mother in law, having nothing.
The Bible is full, front to back, of stories behind the people we hold up as heroes and heroins. It is such truth that no one of significance reaches that place without overcoming. Overcoming is only ever possible with resilience. Grit, as some would say. In this day and age of convenience and luxury, where some of our greatest obstacles in the day is not having enough battery for our phone or enough money to kit our kids out in the latest trends. We forget that hardship shouldn't be something we try and shield our kids from, but something we teach them to face and walk through. It is absolutely normal to want to remove every obstacle in our kids lives. To want their path to be smooth and for everything to be wonderful. But at the end of the day, life will come to them at some point, ready or not. It is best we as parents prepare them for how to deal with it when it does.
And when life happens, the sort of 'life' that is out of our control, we can trust our precious children to God and know that He has greater plans for our kids than we ever had for them. We can shut down the voice of fear and guilt and know that essentially, trials and troubles are actually a gift. A gift in presenting our kids an opportunity to develop the missing trait of resilience from so many in this generation.
If we think about it, it isn't even a good parenting model. We serve a God who doesn't always deliver us out of every trial in our timing. He doesn't jump at the snap of our finger. He is much more interested in our development, our heart, our character, than our happiness. Having a house full of 'happy' kids is the best, lets be honest. But if our parenting style is to mimic and copy our Heavenly Father's, then we need to allow our kids to walk through hard times, sad times, big emotions, having teachers who don't like them, being wrongly accused, not being picked for the sports team... and events that are out of all of our control and show them who to look to. See it as a learning opportunity for an invaluable lesson of when to run to, who to turn to. Giving our children an opportunity to realise God is their source is something that will carry them in the hardest times that life may bring.
So as mums, lets lay off the guilt, step out of fear and into faith that no matter what our little ones are facing in their world, just as at some point in all those Bible heroes stories, life looks bleak, but it turned out to be their learning opportunity that lead to what they needed to walk in their destiny. Realise that no matter what is happening, whether it's learning difficulties that you're walking your little person through, a family separation, a bullying situation, teach your kids like God does, that there are no victims in the Kingdom of God. Everything will be used somehow for God's glory and for our good if we choose to learn from it and use it to get to know God more. It sounds easy but it's pretty hard having to watch heartbroken kids not understanding a situation. I get it. And no, spoiling a kid or distracting them does no good in the long run. It takes putting every natural instinct aside and allowing them to discover not us as their safe place, but God. Out of every gift we could get them, that is a gift that is priceless.
So mums, as those other two mums were joking about, but in all seriousness, YOUR KIDS NEED HURDLES!!! Every influential, incredible leader has come from hardship. Your kids will learn to survive and in building resilience, you are actually doing them a favour. Much easier said than done, but lets be honest, there is nothing easy about being a mum so that's not a surprise, right?
I laughed my head off and then went away and thought about the profound truth in that. Not that I can relate to any sort of 'mum guilt' for some of the petty things they rattled off that may be an issue for some people, but to be honest, I could care less what people thought of me if I rocked up with store-bought, bakery items for a bake sale... but the point is deeper than that.
It got me thinking, because in us, as mums is an innate protective instinct that wants to do everything in our power to save our precious babies (no matter how old) from hardship and pain. I whole-heartedly believe that is a God-given instinct, seen on display even in the animal kingdom. There are no boundaries on a mother's love, no lengths she won't go to, to protect her own.
The dilemma we face is that in life is that so much is out of our control. We can make our own choices to an extent but we cannot control what happens in our lives, the start we had in life, what people do to us or events that occur that have life-altering ramifications in our lives. It is so easy to allow fear to creep in, that little lying voice that whispers in our ears, laying out for us all the paths of failure that our kids are going to walk down because of things we've done or things that have happened in their lives. How often do we entertain those voices? How often do we allow our minds to walk the dark path down fear's way. Now I'm not talking about 'not going back for the lunchbox' situations now. I'm talking about the big things in life that happen to us, because of us or to our families, the things that we want to extract our kids from, pick them up and plant them safely, untouched, on the other side. Whether it's losing a loved one, a divorce, a family crisis, a financial crisis in the family, bullying at school; life is full of situations that aren't fair and we just wish we could save our kids from. And when we can't, that is when mum-guilt can come in. That is when we can slip into fear. Or faith.
You see I thought further and was immediately confronted with the fact that we, as parents, often pray for our kids to be like Daniel. To be unwavering and influential. We forget that the process of him possessing his destiny, involved a very messy situation of his whole nation being captured and him being taken away from family and friends as a young man, to a heathen nation and held basically as a prisoner.
We pray so readily for our kids to have favour on their life, like Joseph. We just aren't so ready to pray for the process that he went through to be able to stand in a place of authority, as a leader of a nation. We would give our own lives to make sure our children weren't thrown into a pit and then into prison after being wrongly accused.
David is another example, a man who had a heart after God, I pray this too, for my children. That they'd be like David. We forget that this heart for God was forged as a result of basically being rejected by his earthly father. He was out tending the sheep and all but overlooked and forgotten when the prophet sent for Jesse's sons. Not even counted among them, was David. Yet it was in those years of solitude that David got a revelation of God, developed his strength and skill as a warrior and came to know God in a way that would set him up to rule as King.
Lovely Ruth, the one who married wealthy Boaz who ended up being in the very lineage of Jesus because of her life of devotion. How we pray and desire our daughters to be like her. Forgetting all the while that she was a widow. Her husband died and she had to leave her people and go to a foreign land with her mother in law, having nothing.
The Bible is full, front to back, of stories behind the people we hold up as heroes and heroins. It is such truth that no one of significance reaches that place without overcoming. Overcoming is only ever possible with resilience. Grit, as some would say. In this day and age of convenience and luxury, where some of our greatest obstacles in the day is not having enough battery for our phone or enough money to kit our kids out in the latest trends. We forget that hardship shouldn't be something we try and shield our kids from, but something we teach them to face and walk through. It is absolutely normal to want to remove every obstacle in our kids lives. To want their path to be smooth and for everything to be wonderful. But at the end of the day, life will come to them at some point, ready or not. It is best we as parents prepare them for how to deal with it when it does.And when life happens, the sort of 'life' that is out of our control, we can trust our precious children to God and know that He has greater plans for our kids than we ever had for them. We can shut down the voice of fear and guilt and know that essentially, trials and troubles are actually a gift. A gift in presenting our kids an opportunity to develop the missing trait of resilience from so many in this generation.
If we think about it, it isn't even a good parenting model. We serve a God who doesn't always deliver us out of every trial in our timing. He doesn't jump at the snap of our finger. He is much more interested in our development, our heart, our character, than our happiness. Having a house full of 'happy' kids is the best, lets be honest. But if our parenting style is to mimic and copy our Heavenly Father's, then we need to allow our kids to walk through hard times, sad times, big emotions, having teachers who don't like them, being wrongly accused, not being picked for the sports team... and events that are out of all of our control and show them who to look to. See it as a learning opportunity for an invaluable lesson of when to run to, who to turn to. Giving our children an opportunity to realise God is their source is something that will carry them in the hardest times that life may bring.
So as mums, lets lay off the guilt, step out of fear and into faith that no matter what our little ones are facing in their world, just as at some point in all those Bible heroes stories, life looks bleak, but it turned out to be their learning opportunity that lead to what they needed to walk in their destiny. Realise that no matter what is happening, whether it's learning difficulties that you're walking your little person through, a family separation, a bullying situation, teach your kids like God does, that there are no victims in the Kingdom of God. Everything will be used somehow for God's glory and for our good if we choose to learn from it and use it to get to know God more. It sounds easy but it's pretty hard having to watch heartbroken kids not understanding a situation. I get it. And no, spoiling a kid or distracting them does no good in the long run. It takes putting every natural instinct aside and allowing them to discover not us as their safe place, but God. Out of every gift we could get them, that is a gift that is priceless.So mums, as those other two mums were joking about, but in all seriousness, YOUR KIDS NEED HURDLES!!! Every influential, incredible leader has come from hardship. Your kids will learn to survive and in building resilience, you are actually doing them a favour. Much easier said than done, but lets be honest, there is nothing easy about being a mum so that's not a surprise, right?
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