A Vision for Our Parenting

Yesterday my wife and I were driving our overcrowded, odd smelling, and stained mini-van; trying to talk while our four kids sat in the back singing, dramatizing battles, and doing anything else that is not sleeping.  While avoiding the pot hole that is all of Jackson roads, we began talking about our shared goal for parenting our kids.  What do we want to focus on as we raise them?  What's our vision for our home?

There are plenty of great possibilities:  To raise emotionally, spiritually and mentally mature adults.  As a therapist I particularly like this one.  To prepare them with the needed skills and tools to grow into all that God would have them.  To help foster the giftedness God has put in them so that they can use it fully as adults.  On and on this list can go.  I doubt there is one 'right' answer for our vision of parenting our kids.

However, as we talked I remembered something I had read in a book for divorcee's entering into blended families.  It went something like this:

The goal of parenting is to teach our children how to live in Christian community.

I like this because it seems to summarize nearly all of my smaller goals I have already listed.  In order to be a healthy part of a community it is necessary to develop into an emotionally, spiritually and mentally mature adult.  Not only that, but it would require gaining the relational skills needed for interacting in meaningful relationships with others.

What would it be like for my family to function as a micro-community wherein they learned how to deal with relational hurts, confront and forgive others,  humbly receive instruction and care, and function within an economy of grace and truth rather than shame and hiding?

Paul speaks often on how we are to relate within the church, with the church being the organic body of Jesus in and among us.  Is it possible to teach my kids how to be a part of that body from a young age?

With this goal in mind, I can foster a home environment wherein there are 'many parts, but one body'.  I can help my kids experience what it is to be unified and different, gifted in diverse and complementary ways, dynamically connected for the good of those we love as well as the world at large.  This moves way past teaching my kids to obey and do right.  Hopefully, this helps my kids grow into 'Jesus with skin on' by experiencing Christ in and among us right at home.

The Morning Song of the Mockingbird

Here of late I've been caught at unawares by the singing of a Mockingbird.  This morning, for instance, as I was sitting in my office his song caught me.  When I hear it, for some reason it gives me hope.  Not so with other birds, their songs often sound harsh or unpleasant.

I sat for a while listening, trying to resonate with what it was that seemed joyful in his song.  At first, the Mockingbird's song sounds erratic; constantly changing between different trills, whistles and chirps.  This is what my morning felt like, anxious, frantic and unstable.  Usually I end here, jump up and try to start fixing whatever it is that anxiously nags at me.  Gladly, I didn't stop listening this morning, for as I kept listening his song begins sounding more like a melody, albeit a melody made up of constantly changing tunes, yet flowing peacefully all the same.  This is more like my life as a whole.

I think I connect to his song because he's singing the song of life.  Sometimes it's harsh and pointed like his chirps.  Whereas other times life seems more like his trills, full of energy and excitement.  Still at other times life is more like a whistle, going up before coming quickly back down.  Always changing, rarely staying the same.  We may go to bed Friday night full of anticipation and hope of a restful Saturday to find that upon awakening one of the kid's has strep throat, the car won't start, and the clouds of depression have begun to move in.  I can't control what tomorrow brings - hell, I can't even prepare for it well.

Hearing the Mockingbird's song reminds me that I don't have to control or manage life, for when I do I am steeped in a self-willed motivation that usually leads to dishonesty with my self and others, and ultimately ends in self-pity or blame.  Rather, his song reminds me that I can resound with assurance through it all; in the low painful places, the mundane day-to-day, and those brief moments of intense joy and pleasure.  I can sit and be still, assured that One greater than me is holding it together, and not only this, but it is a part of His great pleasure to work things for my enduring good.

Today I seek to live in Abba's will,  receiving the little gifts He gives me throughout the day.  When anxiety stirs up and threatens to unleash threatening clouds of dread, I'll pause and ask God to reset me from living in my self-seeking motivations, self-pity and dishonesty.  I'll intentionally ask him to set me in His will of peace and promise.