I realized my last post was yet another parenting lesson! Wow. Apparently I needed to have a lot of kids so I could finally be humble enough to start learning by the time the 11th came along.
So, onto parenting lesson #6.
Part 1: discussions
I had a pretty serious discussion with someone last week about how to show love to someone when you feel they are making bad choices. You don't want to enable or show support of negative behaviors, but you want to show love and support of the person.
Tough question. Perhaps it is because it is hard to know when people have "brought things upon themselves" and when they are genuinely victims? How to show love in a non-enabling way? Is that the question behind all of this? Is it our place to judge? Perhaps so, perhaps not to any or all of those questions :). Still musing on this
Part 2: connections
My babies have been sick. Pretty yucky. Baby Binks got worse on Sunday and pretty much spent all day nursing, being held or crying. Notice "sleeping" wasn't on that list. He slept a bit but was pretty miserable. Hence, we all had a little piece of "misery"...especially when Mommy was having a pity party.
Normally he is a pretty easy going child and gets enough attention and love to keep going. But yesterday...whew. It was pretty tough.
At one point, he was crying pathetically from the crib where I had just laid him down from where he had been asleep in my arms. Sigh. I was frustrated. Very frustrated. There is always that question to me at points like this: am I spoiling them by giving in or is this a need?
The thought came: Mary, he is genuinely sick and you just need to hold him and love him. In my mind came the impression that often we are like the little baby crying in the crib. God is the parent looking down on us. He can see perfectly when we are crying out of need for genuine love and comfort from internal sickness beyond our control and when we are just whining.
On the other hand, sometimes we are also "outside of the crib looking in" to other people's problems or cries for help. The Spirit will guide us when we need to just hold them and love them due to sicknesses beyond their control, situations where they are baby-like in maturity (myself too often) and just need some love. Maybe we are all like those infants at times, crying for help because we just can't handle it. Maybe sometimes we just need to be held. Just need to be loved. Quietly, constantly...even when we don't know the answer to what is wrong.
You know, maybe the only time we should "walk away and leave them screaming" is when we feel a strong prompting that it is their battle and their need for growth at the time and our default should be to reach out in love? You may not know what to say but sometimes just saying: "I am here for you and I am sorry that you are struggling right now" is enough.
I had many people "not want to say the wrong thing" when Isaak died but it didn't matter :). I could feel their love as they struggled for what to say and reached out anyway. Feeling their love, their intention communicated by the Spirit was enough. Humbly offered love was balm, no matter the seeming imperfection of the manner it came in. Pure love.
So, onto parenting lesson #6.
Part 1: discussions
Tough question. Perhaps it is because it is hard to know when people have "brought things upon themselves" and when they are genuinely victims? How to show love in a non-enabling way? Is that the question behind all of this? Is it our place to judge? Perhaps so, perhaps not to any or all of those questions :). Still musing on this
Part 2: connections
My babies have been sick. Pretty yucky. Baby Binks got worse on Sunday and pretty much spent all day nursing, being held or crying. Notice "sleeping" wasn't on that list. He slept a bit but was pretty miserable. Hence, we all had a little piece of "misery"...especially when Mommy was having a pity party.
Normally he is a pretty easy going child and gets enough attention and love to keep going. But yesterday...whew. It was pretty tough.At one point, he was crying pathetically from the crib where I had just laid him down from where he had been asleep in my arms. Sigh. I was frustrated. Very frustrated. There is always that question to me at points like this: am I spoiling them by giving in or is this a need?
The thought came: Mary, he is genuinely sick and you just need to hold him and love him. In my mind came the impression that often we are like the little baby crying in the crib. God is the parent looking down on us. He can see perfectly when we are crying out of need for genuine love and comfort from internal sickness beyond our control and when we are just whining.
On the other hand, sometimes we are also "outside of the crib looking in" to other people's problems or cries for help. The Spirit will guide us when we need to just hold them and love them due to sicknesses beyond their control, situations where they are baby-like in maturity (myself too often) and just need some love. Maybe we are all like those infants at times, crying for help because we just can't handle it. Maybe sometimes we just need to be held. Just need to be loved. Quietly, constantly...even when we don't know the answer to what is wrong.
You know, maybe the only time we should "walk away and leave them screaming" is when we feel a strong prompting that it is their battle and their need for growth at the time and our default should be to reach out in love? You may not know what to say but sometimes just saying: "I am here for you and I am sorry that you are struggling right now" is enough.
I had many people "not want to say the wrong thing" when Isaak died but it didn't matter :). I could feel their love as they struggled for what to say and reached out anyway. Feeling their love, their intention communicated by the Spirit was enough. Humbly offered love was balm, no matter the seeming imperfection of the manner it came in. Pure love.
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