Spiritual Truths Learned from Parenting

Kids can be frustrating. Very frustrating. And every once in a while, in a moment of absolute frustration, I will find myself saying something to my children that reminds me of a spiritual truth I know from scripture, and I immediately feel convicted. I feel convicted because it often takes the simplistic terminology and extreme parental frustration for me to understand an important truth that God has been trying to drill home to me my whole life. There have been a couple that I'm going to post here.

1. On my birthday my mom got a couple of pies from The Spot. For those who don't know, The Spot in Sidney has the BEST pies and my favorite are old-fashioned cream pie and strawberry. We got the pies and took them to McDonalds for dessert after the kids ate and played at McDonalds (it was raining and there was truly nothing else to do in Sidney). So I had told the kids that they could not have any pie unless they ate their dinner. Seth chose not to eat his dinner and when pie time came around I said he had chosen not to have pie. My mom and grandpa both gave me the puppy-dog faces because I was denying Seth special birthday pie. Seth begged me for pie and I finally cracked under the pressure of my mom and grandpa and said, "ok Seth. I am choosing to let you have a piece of pie right now even though you did not eat your dinner because I love you and it's a special occasion. But I want you to know that this is what grace feels like, it's something undeserved that you are blessed with anyways." And I saw the teaching moment, and followed up with a half-hearted, "It's just like God's grace when He gave us salvation. Remember this feeling, grace feels like pie when you didn't eat your dinner." And I laughed it off because I was mostly joking. But in all reality, I hope Seth remembers a little taste of grace whenever he has a taste of pie! =)

2. My children do not clean the playroom, EVER! It has become a point of infuriation for me. I feel the rage boiling in my blood just thinking about how I will work with them for HOURS and do everything short of actually just picking everything up by myself, only to have them literally make a bigger mess in the process. Playroom clean up times inevitably end up in privilges/toys being taken away and lots of frustration. During one of the disastrous efforts to get them to clean, I finally lost it and yelled, "Why won't you just clean up the toys? It's all that I ask of you! " Seth responded with, "I know mommy, but I love you." And I immediately said the first thing that popped into my head and yelled, "If you loved me, you would obey my words!" I caught myself and at first thought to myself that it wasn't fair to put that on them. But then I recalled the scripture "If you love Me, you will obey My commands." And it dawned on me. Is this how incredibly frustrating we are to our heavenly Father? It's so simple. Just obey. The only way to demonstrate that we care is by our obedience. And if we say "I love you, Lord", but don't honor Him in our actions, it means absolutely nothing. And what He asks of us is generally so simple and easy (like picking up toys) that there is absolutely no excuse for disobedience. And as a follow-up to the lesson and what it means for myself, it deepened my resolve to teach my children how to obey completely now, so that when they are older, they will know how to obey their Heavenly Father in everything they do.

Along the same lines... a couple years ago when I was working on potty training Seth, he was completely able to use the toilet and get there in time. He just chose to poop in his pants for a while. I still don't know why. It was very frustrating and I was venting about it one night on the phone with a friend. I was saying how it didn't make any sense. It's so much easier and cleaner to just poop in the potty, I could not understand why Seth would choose to sit in excrement instead. Just stop pooping your pants!!!! My friend laughed and said, "do you think that's how God feels about us and our sin? Do you think He's ever up there just like, "Stop pooping your pants!!!!" And it became a joke in our group for a while that God would probably be so much happier if we would all just stop pooping our pants (in a spiritual sense, of course). =)

And so to sum up, my spiritual reminders from God (using my kids) lately are that His grace is like pie when we didn't eat our dinner; if I love him I will clean up my toys (or whatever else He asks of me); and that sin is like pooping your pants and it's gross and unnecessary and we should stop doing it. haha...

Note: Here's the scriptures on our obedience and love:

John 14:15
[ Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit ] "If you love me, you will obey what I command.

John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

John 14:23
Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 14:24
He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

MIA for a While

So, I have not written anything in quite a while. We've been out of town a lot and just kind of busy. But mostly busy with a lot of stuff that isn't very interesting to write about. Seth wrapped up his pre-K school year and we are enjoying summer break. We went to Ohio for about 10 days in the middle of June to visit family. All of my brothers were in town for a few days and we wanted to make sure we caught some time with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. We also got spend some time with My BFs, Ruth and Beka and our 9 kids together (that's the pic with 9 kids with their faces painted). The kids had a blast with the Newman cousins and then the weekend we were in Sidney was CRAZY busy with a wedding that some close friends of the family were having at my parents' house. Lilah thought she had really walked into a fairy tale world with the huge white tent and flowers everywhere and the "princess" (aka Bride). The bride's wedding dress was hanging in my mom's room the day of the wedding. Lilah woke up early and went into my parents' room and saw the dress (which was GORGEOUS) hanging full length over a white sheet. She gasped... caught her breath, and then said "is that the princess dress?" My mom said yes and don't touch it! So Lilah walked over and said "Ok, I'll just sit and look at it." She sat cross-legged on the floor just staring at the dress, with that fogged over, dreamy gaze in her eyes for at least 30 minutes. Most girls start dreaming about their wedding day around the age of 5. I'm pretty sure that Lilah has gotten a head start dreaming about her "princess day." It might be time to start saving for it now! =)

After the wedding and all of that craziness was over, we just kind of relaxed and recouped for a couple of days at mom and dad's. I had my birthday (29, yikes!). And then we were scheduled to go to King's Island on Wed., June 16. So, on Tuesday morning, we got a call from my sister-in-law, Sarah, and she said was loading her van and the kids and would be here that night. They had gone home to New York for Ben to work. Sarah's sister in Ohio had her baby a few days later and Sarah wanted to come see the baby. Since she wanted to see the baby, she decided to make it in time for the King's Island day with us. SO EXCITING! We were thrilled they made it back and the kids loved the King's Island day with the cousins. And I loved some slumber party time with Sarah. Both of our hubbys were away for work and medical conferences, so we went back to high school mode and had 2 nights of sleepovers like we used to before she married my brother! =)

I headed back to Detroit with the kids after the King's Island day and we've been enjoying time with Josh and getting settled back into our routine up here. Seth has been going to Safety Town last week and this week and is loving it. Josh and I got away for the evening Saturday night to attend his department picnic for work and then we went to see Grown-Ups. (So funny!!!!) We took the kids to see Toy Story 3 yesterday and the kids loved it. Josh's call schedule has been kind of insane for the past few months, so we are looking forward to a little easier call schedule for the rest of the summer. That's about all the catching up there is to do for us.