You are the best parents for your child(ren): enjoying it.

I love how Joy supplants everything.

credit: goongkrazy.wordpress.com

Cannot quite remember the labour pains? The nasty and awkward breastfeeding / bathing moments? The long nights? The hundredth time you read that story?

With a mighty teen and a little warrior at 15 and 10, I am well into a new season of mothering for sure. And the Joy has supplanted the pains. Each one. Even now. The teen angst, the motivational mountains, the clean-room war-zone... not that they are over; but they are now rhythm and you learn to Rock and roll with it! How?

Here are 3 survive-into-Joy ways I found:


#1 It's going to happen - again

You ever feel like some days are so deja vu? You have already talked about it, laid down some rules..perhaps you shed a tear or more, prayed... and you thought 'ah, now let's move on'.. and it happens again! The same snarky remark, the attitude, the mess, the disrespect, the sloth and on... None of us grow or change by sheer reasoning. It takes far more. It certainly takes time, loads of it. So, you haven't failed to communicate, care or more. It's just the nature of the things.

Growth takes time, it takes protection, it takes practice.

So don't let every battle be a Waterloo or a watershed. In fact, parenting is not about winning battles but building lives. So keep that goal before you. Don't spend your precious energies trimming leaves for presentation when what you really need to fight are these enemies of the soul -

distrust,
doubt,
unresolved anger,
deep sadness,
repeated sin.

All behaviours come from a deeper place; so seek to know what is going on there and work your way towards it. The health will emerge - from the roots out.

And the Joy? From knowing there is a Gardener who knows our knotty roots well enough to heal and strengthen them. 

#2 Let your spouse take the heat too

Most moms, especially stay-at-home ones tend to shoulder so much of the family we forget we have a comrade. Like us, fathers did not really come armed and ready. But it's a catch-22 when we don't give them a chance to learn, practice and sharpen their abilities.

I have had my fair share (and still do) of being questioned, blamed, even berated! And I do deserve it because I have lost it, lashed out, licked my wounds; all three not really constructive ya. So I have learnt to notice my emotional gauge and signal for help:

whatsapp: not good today, expect some damage. pls pray.
SMS: so dog-tired! the kids are so stupid! when will they learn? Am still ok though.
verbals: need to pray, please take over ~ don't need to worry; he/she/they have to learn to sort it out. I am hiding for a while to recover.

To my surprise; spouse steps up! To be honest, he rarely does exactly what I hope: sprinkle magic dust on the kids and turn them into angels. But he drags me out of the house for coffee. He asks if I am alright/alive/spiritually ok. He scolds the kids! He takes over for a bit. He prays for me.

The Joy? When you know that even though you are sometimes awkward, disagreeing, impatient; there's We not just me.


#3 Be grateful for the good, not greedy for the perfect

With little kids, we have so much control that we can get suckered into thinking we forever hold all the strings of control. They gladly go most places, try most things and want totally to please you! Sure there are tantrums and meltdowns; but mother-influence is pretty mighty. Just recently, my son quipped, "it takes a genius to be a mom" and I heartily approved!

Then, they grow older, and all you have got are the purse-strings and the heartstrings. This is the time when your soul is being trained to be discerning; because you can plan to the hilt but it is just not going to go the way you want. There are preferences, moods, peer pressure, schoolwork etc. to contend with. So you have to be able to taste and delight in the morsels of closeness, empathy, respect, diligence, honesty, discipline, godliness ...

It is also the time to be self-controlled to be grateful and not grate on about what else is lacking. No soul ever thrived under condemnation. All life is coaxed into fullness that begins with acceptance.

Then Joy begins to bubble to the surface and breaks the tension. You will feel much more relaxed about your parenting - and enjoy it.

Christmas is near, and this is the angelic beckoning -

"I bring you good new of great Joy!"

All our daily, lesser and so essential joys beat a trail to this Great Joy.

ENJOY = EN(ter) into JOY my friends!

You are the best parents for your child(ren): just keep winning this 'A' tussle

Some of the worst wars are unseen.

That successful executive on the Feature page?
The bedraggled after-work aunt dozing off on the train?
The young man all suited up in stylish A&F?

We all live lives of quiet desperation so said Thoreau. We do. We desperately want a better, easier, richer, more colourful, fulfilling, exciting, relaxing... life.

We also want more co-operative, agreeable, disciplined, spiritually receptive children, who are more like us.

So this war rages on within us. The war of Acceptance.



It takes much to accept our lives, and to accept our children.

What I have learnt is this: refusing to accept blinds us to the good and robs us of the good to come. 

Of course there are things that must change. There always will. The children can learn to speak more respectfully. They can be more considerate that the home is a shared space and take care of it. They can contribute ideas, time and even means. There are habits that must be looked at seriously and overcome perhaps.

But grumbling about how bad things are hardly ever improves anything.

The world is very slow at learning this because the family which is the soil of all human BE-ing has been stripped of so much of this wondrous nutrient called Acceptance. In our eager rush to fit in with the norm, to catch up with the best, to be ahead of the pack, we will forever zoom in on what is 'missing' and 'lacking'. It will be the last twenty marks on that paper 80/100 that captures our attention. All the time we are communicating, 'I cannot accept this'.

This is what drives children to suicide.
This is what gives us a world that hurtles on with  a superficial 'progress' as we watch our souls 'regress'.
This is what makes the home a place of strain and tension, not peace and growth.

Just how do we get to Acceptance?

My god-daughter was diagnosed to be autistic when she was about two. When you have a first born who is clearly marked 'will be successful', a younger sibling who is on a whole different dimension is a hard thing to embrace. But I watch my girlfriend brave the journey. Of course she questioned. Of course she wept. Of course she prayed and wondered and hoped for a miracle. But she also let her love for her daughter lead the way. Her heart shifted to a grieving loss and acceptance, to a fighter's resolve, to a compassionate effort to link arms with other parents like her. It is amazing to see how much my god-daughter is able to do in terms of self-care and relating to others.

Acceptance is what makes it possible for us to thrive.

This is why "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world; but to save the world through Him.: {John 3v17}

WOW.

Perfection knows the way is not to demand we measure up; but bends down, reaches out, and embraces. The way up is down - laying down in His acceptance of us.

And if Perfection in all His wisdom knows the way and shows it to us; why not walk in it?

My own little darling was never any issue for me until she began school. The opportunities for her sin nature to feed and manifest grew exponentially as she found language and values that did not agree with how I raised her. Then as she morphed into a petulant, sullen teen; she grew even more unlike me, and started showing distinct personality weaknesses. I have heard many mothers moaned the 'loss' of their little angels! But no amount of sighing and wishing will bring them back! The angel is going through a metamorphosis and our acceptance of this process is critical.

It has been said that if you tried to help the butterfly out of the cocoon, you will kill it. That cute little fuzzy, wuzzy caterpillar must meta-morph; and it needs its own time to do so.


Our failure to accept indicates that we are holding on to something and cannot behold what is before us with untainted eyes. 'Not good enough' is fed to all our senses everyday that we believe it more readily than what is really before us: a living being that has the potential to change the world.

Letting our children be who they are at this point of time is the beginning of acceptance. And it is this strong rich soil that feeds and holds up a strong plant. There will be times when storms will come and buffet and as we accept life's challenges and accept our kids as they weather theirs; we won't topple.

Acceptance also grows as we realise how much our God, our spouse and our children accept us. It's easy to lose sight of this! We always feel our pain most keenly; but we can be a pain too!


I learnt to really see my children: where they are at, how they are feeling, what they are struggling with, how they are trying, what they have accomplished. Then to my relish, I see them responding and thriving.

Letting go and letting be is where we start.

Remembering that we can be a source of grief is a potent, humbling reminder.

Good soil that enables a plant to really thrive is nutrient rich with Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous; an unseen army of compounds. And I can think of no matter battle-effective strategy for this war of Acceptance than oft unseen habit of Gratitude.

{click on these links for helps & inspiration}

keep a gratitude journal
a little bird sings and I am grateful

Journey to the never dried-up well #4

Welcome. This is our fourth stop, and as I look over our journey, something emerges.

When we encounter Jesus: each time you read, pause, go away to a 'closet' place to be -- Jesus steps out from our hazy ideas to a become a solid, real Presence and Person who has much to offer our hungry, thirsty hearts.

word & truth

Our first stop was a well, a most natural spot to quench our thirst.
In John 4, we have a record of a woman who went to a physical well and met the Spring of Living Water himself. Her story shows us the transforming power of a heart-set-free: she had come to the well at noon to avoid the town gossips, to just get her water and go. Her life was far from alright; she has been in a string of relationships where rejection and desertion has been the theme {over the years, I have met many women who indeed live with such themes. So real-ly painful}.

Yet -

after Jesus reaches into her heart, she leaves that well and announces to her fellow villagers - the same people she wants to avoid - that "he told me everything about my life".  What a strange thing to say. Unlike anything or anyone she has ever met or known, Jesus' chat with her was so filled with truth and acceptance that she felt he embraced her life so that now her story is no longer one that needs to be hidden.

Jesus helped her see her life in a whole new light; so that she is now able to claim her life and be at peace with it. Her life is not a fearful, foregone conclusion, but a faith-refreshed, forward possibility.

She found the water that reached deep into her parched, desperate soul.  As she is deeply refreshed, it begins to spring forth to refresh others ~

"Come see a man who told me all the things that I have done, this is not the Christ is it?"

John 4v29

your truth

How has this journey been? I am recently keenly aware that my questions and struggles signal that there are bits of my life I am not at peace with. 

Perhaps you too need not fear taking your long list of pains, regrets and questions to Jesus. You may even beat about the bush like the woman at the well did; talking about history and theology...but Jesus will lovingly and firmly lead the conversation to its heart. 

At some point, when we get to our desperation and humbly acknowledge it, "give me this water.." Jesus may well ask us the one question that cuts through everything and lifts the fog -- so we can see why peace escapes us.

We can then gaze long into the eyes of the Prince of peace and feel his peace flood our beings, our sense of confidence, worth, and destiny refreshed...and indeed, long to refresh others.

more truth with community

As you take time these few days to sit with Jesus, anticipate refreshment! Please share your experience with us. We would be so encouraged to hear your story!