It’s not about me. Or you.

Faith said some­thing to me the other day in pass­ing. It delighted my heart and gave me much to ponder.

She said, “Mommy, I can’t imag­ine you scream­ing. You’re usu­ally so calm.”

Ah. Well, while the Lord has cer­tainly done a huge work in my life, it hasn’t always been this way in our home.

You see, the Lord gave me three boys first. I remem­ber very clearly hav­ing three boys aged 4 and under. And hav­ing just moved across the coun­try. And being extremely frustrated.

Why wouldn’t they obey me per­fectly? Why did they have to make messes con­stantly. And dirty so many clothes each week? And DEMAND my time and emo­tions and work all.day.and.night.long? I had the baby, who stayed up until 3am most nights, want­ing to nurse and never sleep­ing in his crib. He would finally fall asleep and stay that way if I put him in a lit­tle seat. And then there was the strong willed two year old. He wrote the book on being strong willed. Don’t worry, I burned it. The book, that is. And then, the four year old was push­ing bound­aries, grow­ing way too fast for me.

I was exhausted. And ready for preschool to start so that I would get some of my old life back. I was so selfish.

I had a dear friend pop by one day. The boys were being lit­tle boys. I obvi­ously had not fig­ured out this par­ent­ing thing. In a moment of des­per­a­tion, I started count­ing to three to get my son to obey.

Seri­ously. And it embar­rasses me to think about how ridicu­lous I must have sounded.

My friend, oh how I love her and thank her daily for this — in my head, she has no idea how strongly she impacted our lives that day, said to me, “What hap­pens when you get to three?”

Blank stare.

I had never got­ten to three before. The obe­di­ence usu­ally hap­pened around 2 ½.

She sug­gested that I should require obe­di­ence just because I gave instruc­tion. I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, stand on my head, or go through the rou­tine of counting.

Blank stare.

I never counted again for obe­di­ence. Now, I cringe when I hear moth­ers doing that. I won­der who is being trained. The mom or the children?

Slowly, I began to learn how to par­ent my chil­dren. How to teach them obe­di­ence, how to love them more. And patience grew.

And I real­ized that it wasn’t all about me. My chil­dren sin because they are sin­ners. They don’t do it to get me mad. They fell with Adam, just like I did. And so they will strug­gle with obe­di­ence and lov­ing and self­ish­ness. Just like me.

The Lord worked in my heart to give me com­pas­sion toward my chil­dren in this strug­gle. He man­aged to give me a joy in the midst of the strug­gles. It’s noth­ing short of a miracle.

And so, by God’s grace, my lit­tle daugh­ter thinks that it would be unusual to hear me scream. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for show­ing me a bet­ter way to be a mother, to love, to show them Your grace when they struggle.

And no, I don’t do this per­fectly. Not even close. But, my heart soars with joy and delight to think that my lit­tle Faith thinks it would be unimag­in­able to hear me scream.

Of course, her big brother said he could bring a snake by to show her what it would be like.

And that would do it.  I think I’ll pass.

I have more thoughts about this topic, but I think I will save them for another post. May the Lord bless you as you strug­gle through the days of rais­ing chil­dren. It’s no easy task, that’s for sure! I pray that they will be blessed as you seek the Lord for wis­dom to get through your days.

Remem­ber, it’s not about you. It isn’t about your com­fort, your ease of liv­ing, your per­sonal agenda.

But it is about your growth, your walk with the Lord, your cling­ing to the cross of Christ daily.

Walk in peace, in joy, in patience. You are rais­ing a gen­er­a­tion that will par­ent your grand­chil­dren. Let that sink in.

It’s not about me. Or you. It’s about Christ. And His children.

Bless­ings!