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“The Art of Mothering” given by Dr. Gordon Bals, a Christian counselor who runs Daymark Counseling in Birmingham. In a world hostile to Christian faith and family values, mothers may find themselves parenting fearfully. Other women who desire to become mothers may be overwhelmed by the challenges they are certain to face. This two-hour event will help mothers and […]
“The Art of Mothering” given by Dr. Gordon Bals, a Christian counselor who runs Daymark Counseling in Birmingham.
In a world hostile to Christian faith and family values, mothers may find themselves parenting fearfully. Other women who desire to become mothers may be overwhelmed by the challenges they are certain to face.
This two-hour event will help mothers and would-be mothers to identify the biggest obstacles to freedom in parenting. Gordon will encourage women to parent out of faith while learning to value their unique mothering style and embrace the artistry of motherhood.
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
I think you're, I don't know how, what word to say, brave or something for coming to listen to a man talk about mothering. Maybe foolish. But I wanna I wanna say this that, there's 2 reasons I think I can say something about mothering. And that is, first of all, God is neither male nor female. He's portrayed actually as a mother in scriptures.
Speaker 1:It says this, the Lord has deserted us. The Lord has forgotten us. Never can a mother forget her nursing child. Can she feel no love for the child she is born? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you.
Speaker 1:Metaphorically, God says, my heart is like that heart of a mother. So as a believer for 30 plus years, as I tried to get to know the Lord, I I am his child And he has been a mother to me. And I know something about his mothering because he's neither male nor female. In addition, I have walked with and watched my wife mother for 17 years. And I've tried stumblingly to help her in her mothering.
Speaker 1:Speak into that, encourage her. And I counsel a lot of moms. And sometimes, it's actually easier when you're not in the middle of something to speak into it. You're not as lost in it. Now, I would say everything I would say if I was a mom, I would say totally different.
Speaker 1:But I would also say it totally different because I'm not a mom. And like I was talking with Lauren before we met, she said, in some ways you'll be more graceful to all of us than we would be to each other, because you're not a mom. And so, I hope that that would help you. But I did want to qualify it as a little unusual to, And really, what happened was Covenant Prez does this mom's thing and they've asked me 3 or 4 times to come and speak. And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1:I gotta have something to say about mothers and study the scriptures. And it was really well received. And so I was like, okay. I'll keep saying And thanks for being here. My entry into motherhood most intimately happened in the fall of 1992.
Speaker 1:My wife and I wanted to have a big family and we, by southern standards, got married late. I was 26 and she was 28. That's changing a little bit. I used to say, as my daughters become teenagers, we're gonna move out of the South because I don't want them feeling like they have to be married. Okay?
Speaker 1:That's, and we wanna have a big family, so we try to start having kids right away. And we didn't know. We probably had some infertility problems before we got pregnant that we realized after. But anyway, we get pregnant after about 3 years of marriage and my wife miscarries at 16 weeks. And up until that point, I had never sat outside the door wondering if I should go in and try to talk to my wife.
Speaker 1:Because when we saw that stick that said she was pregnant, something happened inside of us that was really unique. And I've not seen a woman women approach mothering on a variety of levels. Some are really afraid, some dream of it their whole life. But I've not seen a woman, once they become a mother, not begin to be owned by that in one shape or another. And we're gonna talk some about that.
Speaker 1:But that opened my wife's heart up to longing and hope and despair and frustration, in a way that surprised both of us. And that's where I really, I think, made my first journey into figuring out, I'm gonna need a lot of Jesus' help to be half a husband. Because my wife had really changed after she miscarried. Once that hope was arisen in her heart, her life began to change in a way that surprised us both. And so, I want to talk a little bit about the art of mothering because as a mom, it involves so much longing, so much hope, so much work, so much frustration, so much sin, so much nobility, that it's easy to get lost in it and it become a chore, something you're afraid of, something you're trying really hard to do.
Speaker 1:And that's why I want to talk about it as the art of mothering. Here's how the Britannica online defines art. It says, the use of skill and imagination in the creation of an aesthetic object, environment, or experience that can be shared with others. Doesn't it say in Ephesians that we are God's workmanship? Doesn't it say in Ephesians that we are God's workmanship?
Speaker 1:Your children are God's workmanship. And you and your husband are artist makers. And when we parent out of fear, or duty, or obligation, or anything else, we become more rigid in our parenting, and it turns away from artistry. And I think it's really, really difficult to look at mothering as an art, but I think it's really, really necessary. So it's just in 2nd Corinthians, but thank God he has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession.
Speaker 1:Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere like a sweet perfume. Our lives are Christ like fragrance, rising up to God. Every life has an aroma. You want the aroma of your heart to be life giving to your children in a way that the aroma of their life is life giving to those in their world. But that's gonna happen more as you parent freely and in faith and are not so owned by all the stuff that will come at you day in and day out.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna contextualize. Galatians 5 talks about the freedom that we're we're given in Christ. And I just want to contextualize it to mothering. Okay? So Christ has truly set us free.
Speaker 1:He has set you free as moms. Now, stay free and don't get tied up again in what your friends are doing and what that book told you to do and what your husband thinks you have to do. Okay? I'll say it again. If you're trying to find favor with God by being the mother you think you have to be, or listen to this, if you're trying to obligate your children to love you the rest of your life because you're performing well as a mom, you won't live freely.
Speaker 1:For if you're trying to make yourselves right with God or your children by keeping the law, you've been cut off from Christ. You've fallen from grace. Remember, if your mothering is about your effort and all your knowledge and all you're doing, to some degree you're cut off from Christ. You've fallen away from God's grace. And then, and then Paul in Galatians said, you are running the race so well.
Speaker 1:And what I've watched, and I'm gonna talk some about this, is ma, is women who had a level of freedom and confidence and a whole bunch of things prior to being a mom. And then they get this child and everything changes. And the law and rules and doing it right and everything seems way more important. And they lose the essence of who they are. So it says this, you're running the race well.
Speaker 1:Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God for he is the one who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough. There's so much, what I would call false teaching, about parenting. And that it leavens, it kills the beauty in your heart because you want to do it by grace.
Speaker 1:Goes on to say, I'm trusting you Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. And here's what I wanna say. I don't know if any of you have been following the Penn State thing that evolved the last week.
Speaker 1:And I read a beautiful article where the fella talked about the difference in the men's response to the one mother's response. One boy came home and he only had wet hair, and he wasn't one of the boys who was actually raped. It was an inappropriate contact. And that mother, for her that he he was in a shower with another guy and called the police. There were 3 other incidents of men who who's who was reportedly heard of a rape, and they didn't do anything.
Speaker 1:And the guy who wrote this article said, the difference between the mothers and the 3 men is this mother was moved by love and not obligation and not duty. And so my grand opening is we're gonna un begin to unpack the art of mothering is this, that you have to feel called to parent out of love and freedom. Not duty, obligation, and getting it right. Because it says this really clearly, an earthly father or mother does the best they know how, but God disciplines our kids perfectly. You will love that child more than anything in the world, and you will fail that child more than anything in the world.
Speaker 1:And if your failures going to own you, then you won't parent out of love and freedom. And that's what your children need. Okay? So that's kind of our opening. I want to begin to think about, what's the biggest obstacle?
Speaker 1:If we want a parent, you guys want a mother, out of love and freedom, paying attention to things, but letting your motivation really be love and freedom, so that it's more of an art. What gets in the way of that? And it's really a simple thing. It's the curse. After Adam and Eve were made, God said, be fruitful and multiply.
Speaker 1:Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens. Two large things, rule and subdue and be fruitful and multiply. Rule and subdue is make a difference in your world. We're meaning seeking creatures. You're going to want to create towns and build bridges and find cures to cancer.
Speaker 1:You're gonna wanna make a difference in this world. Be fruitful and multipliers, be connected. We're social beings. We wanna be connected and have a rich, abundant relational world. Well, after Adam and Eve sinned, God disciplined them or he cursed them.
Speaker 1:Now, those of you, I guess you all have children or soon to have children, if they're at the age where you're beginning to discipline more regularly, you realize what you want to do is frustrate things they want. I remember when my girls were real little and they were into The Little Mermaid, that's when that movie had come out. And my one daughter had these little mermaid figurines, Ariel and Eric. I remember their names. Okay?
Speaker 1:And she clutched them as they she went to bed. Well, there were times when she was misbehaving that I took Ariel and Eric and put them up on the shelf and said, sweetie, they'll be watching you. And when you're behaving well again, they'll say, Please, come get me. Okay? But, I disciplined her in an area where she wanted something.
Speaker 1:Okay? Those figurines. So, the way women are disciplined demonstrates what you really want. The way the Lord disciplined women was said, there'll be pain in bringing forth children, and your desire will be for your husband, but who will rule over you? Now, I want you to see what the lord did.
Speaker 1:He took the, 2 most intimate relationships a woman can have, children and husband, and said, I'm gonna frustrate that. Now, realize, he's really talking about relationship. He just takes the 2 most intimate ones, because that would mean a single woman experience, doesn't experience the curse in this world, because she doesn't can't have children and doesn't have a husband. But in some ways, because of the barrenness of intimate relationship for a single woman, she suffers more under the curse than married women. Because your curse was, you're gonna want to be fruitful and multiply.
Speaker 1:You're gonna want to have a rich relational world. But the Lord said this, Adam and Eve showed that you're not gonna trust me. So I've redesigned the world, so that to get what you want, you have to trust me. So women, you have to relate and it hurts. Relate and it's frustrating.
Speaker 1:Relate and it's beautiful, you get all excited, and then it's difficult again. Essentially, what you have to learn to do is let your relating lift you up and rest in the Lord. And as you're relating and trusting the Lord, as you're hurting and letting the Lord care for you, as you're afraid and letting the Lord care for you, and then giving yourself intimately, as the Lord holds you through your relating and you become more confident in it because you it's the Lord relating through you and with you, then you become a more fruitful woman. But if the pain or frustration or difficulty of relationships turn you into your flesh, you become more avoidant or more controlling and that doesn't lead to a rich relational world. Sorry.
Speaker 1:I should have silenced that. So I wanna say, here's why mom's difficulting. It's difficult. It's not because you haven't read enough books. It's not because you didn't follow the advice from the person next to you.
Speaker 1:It's not because if your husband was really a better guy, everything would be better. Okay? Mothering is difficult, because every day, you have to deal with a curse. Alright? And it doesn't have to do, so often you're hurting as a mom, and it's not because anything's wrong.
Speaker 1:It's because the Lord determined that it would be painful, so that you would need him in the process. Here's what CS Lewis says, to love it all is to be vulnerable. Love anything in your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries.
Speaker 1:Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in a casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable and irredeemable.
Speaker 1:Well, here's what I've watched in moms I've worked with. I'm watching my daughters right now, who hopefully, Lord willing, will be future moms. And this was a conversation I had with one of my daughters, who has been determined to find a best friend that she's beginning to let go of at 17. And I said to her the other day, I said, Amy, having a best friend is the law. Something inside you tells you, you should have to have a best friend.
Speaker 1:You ought to have a best friend. You have to have a best friend. And I want to tell you something. That's not Jesus, because he believes you have a friend that sticks closer than a brother. And I said, Amy, you have 4 or 5 girlfriends who love you and they're good friends.
Speaker 1:And you get something from this friend that's different than this friend that's different than this friend that's different than this friend. And together, I think they're a best friend. And God is teaching you how to relate and trust him to get what you need. But it would be great if you could have an idol, if you could have a genie of a best friend that whenever you rubbed them, they came through and gave you what you wanted. So I know without knowing that many of you grew up and began to wonder, why don't I have a best friend?
Speaker 1:Or why didn't my best friend stay my best friend? And this difficulty in relationship becomes more conflicted, and you think, one day I'll get married and I'll have someone who pursues me and loves me forever. And he starts off that way, and then you get married and the fall shows up and it gets a little bit difficult along the line and you realize, well, Western romance really isn't what they say it is. I think you can find a lot of beauty in marriage, but can I tell you, to some degree, my wife isn't my best friend? It's happening more at 21 years of marriage, but my best friend is someone who can watch a game and they don't care if I'm talking or not talking.
Speaker 1:And it's really easy. That's a best friend. My wife is so much more than a best friend. And y'all, when you get together with your friends and they love you and they enjoy you and it's really fun and then you think, why can't that be like that with my husband? It's because he's a guy.
Speaker 1:Okay. 2 totally different people becoming one person, that takes faith. That's why God loves marriage, because it love he loves faith. And you need so much more faith to be one with your spouse than anyone else in the world. Alright?
Speaker 1:So we're better friends at 21 years, way better friends. And she's coming up on being my best friend, my wife. I don't know that I'm even anywhere near being her best friend, but Okay. So you want this best friend as a child, and then you want it as a wife, and then and then you get this little baby who is beautiful beyond words, and who you have control over. And you know what you think?
Speaker 1:Jackpot. I got it. I got relationship for life. And then they become teenagers. Okay?
Speaker 1:So, that's the curse, holding on, letting go. And if through that, you're learning to trust in the Lord, then you but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay. The world was subjected to the curse in hope. Your very hope is that you really want rich relationship that you can't control, and there'll be pain because then, that makes you look to the Lord and lean on him in a way that he feels you, and then you have a more fruitful relational world, and you're more closely related to the person who really ought to be your best friend. I thought I really love God before I got married and became an adult.
Speaker 1:And now, like, this is the truth. I really like God, because he is kinder and better to me than anybody I know. He really is. And I feel like he really is my good friend. Whenever I talk to him, he comforts me, he encourages me.
Speaker 1:But I didn't start off, I wanted a much better friend in my friends, in my wife, in my children, and all of that has helped me. The curse has helped me to need the Lord more than I ever dreamed of. Okay? So, all I've said so far is that, the art of mothering would be to be able to love with more freedom and abandon. Then I said, what is your greatest obstacle?
Speaker 1:That's the curse. And now, what are we aiming for? If we have this longing and this curse, what do you want to become as women that will really enhance the art of mothering? And I wanna use a passage of scripture to talk about this. It says this, from Luke 14.
Speaker 1:And those of you, this is being recorded and the Luke 14. When one of those who were reclining at the table with him heard this, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But he said to him, a man was giving a big dinner and he invited many and he ate at the dinner hour. He sent a slave to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is ready now. But they all like began to make excuses.
Speaker 1:The first one said to him, I bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it. Please consider me excused. Another one said, I have bought 5 yoke of oxen and I'm going to try them out. Please consider me excused. And another one said, I have a married wife and for that reason, I cannot come.
Speaker 1:And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. And the slave said, master, what you have commanded has been done and still there is room. And the master said to the slave, go out into the highways and along the hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you none of these men who were invited shall taste my dinner.
Speaker 1:You may be thinking, what does that have to do with the art of mothering? That is the parable of the great banquet. They're talking about the Messianic banquet. It's an illustration for the end of time when Jesus will welcome the end of time when Jesus will welcome the invisible church, all the true believers into the kingdom and in celebration. Alright?
Speaker 1:So it starts out, blessed is everyone who eats the bread in the kingdom of God, who is gets to enjoy this great banquet. But then he tells the story of the banquet in their culture. It's a parable. It's a metaphor. I want you to understand this, guys, from your culture.
Speaker 1:And so in that day, similar to I or day, you would really get 2 invitations to a banquet. The first invitation would help the person decide because it'd say, I'm gonna have a banquet. I want you to come. Well bay based on the RSVPs, I'm either gonna do 1 to 2 chickens, because I'm gonna have 4 people, or I'm gonna do a sheep because we're gonna have 35 people. Alright?
Speaker 1:Then, makes the invitation, people agree to come and in that culture, you made a real agreement. It isn't like our culture with the loose RSVP, you know. And so then you set to prepare, instead of doing the chicken, you do the sheep, and you prepare this great banquet. And then at the hour of the banquet, like in the parable, they go, they say, Come, all now is ready. Meaning, we've cooked, everything's prepared, come.
Speaker 1:The initial acceptance obligates the guest to respond at the hour of the banquet. Yet in this parable, there's a dramatic turn. The text literally says, they all from 1 began to make excuses. A last minute refusal to attend a great banquet is bad taste in any culture. In the Middle East, it's considered a rude affront to the host.
Speaker 1:Everything was flowing smoothly. The imitations were accepted. The animal butchered, the meat cook, the guest summoned and all at one, excuses. Look at these three excuses. The first one said to him, I bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it.
Speaker 1:Please consider me excused. The statement is a bold faced lie. No one buys a field in the Middle East without looking at every square foot of it. The Western equivalent would be this, a middle class person excusing himself from a wedding because he just bought a house over the phone and needs to go take a look at the condition it's in and the neighborhood it's in. You wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1:What Jesus is doing, he's telling this parable to offend them and help them see his heart. The the first excuse is a bold faced lie. No one would do that in that culture. Okay? Let's look at the second lie.
Speaker 1:Another one said, I've just bought 5 yoke of oxen. I'm going to try them out. In that day, oxen were sold 2 ways. 1 would be in the marketplace, the edge of the market, there would be a small field. And there there would be notations before when this was happening, so you would know ahead of time.
Speaker 1:And if you committed to a banquet, you would have known that it was gonna be the 2nd time in this month, and you just wouldn't have done both. Or a guy who was selling an oxen would say, On this day, I'm gonna be plowing the field. You can come watch him. Again, an advanced type of thing. You wouldn't have both commitments.
Speaker 1:Alright? The Western equivalent would become like, you know what, I can't come to the birthday party because I just bought 5 used cars over the phone, and I need to go see their make and model and see how they run. It just wouldn't happen that way. Alright? The third one says, I have married a wife and for that reason, I cannot come.
Speaker 1:And this is a closed response. He doesn't even ask to be excused. Alright? There's a subtle shift between the first, second, and third responses. The first guest had not yet begun to go.
Speaker 1:He was more open. The second guest literally says, I'm going to test them. He announces an action in process. The 3rd guest speaks in simple past tense, I married a bride. Each excuse is a little more offensive.
Speaker 1:Now what happens, what does the great banquet holder do with those excuses? And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame. What would you have done if you had prepared a banquet and been publicly humiliated? What would you have done?
Speaker 1:Then he says, go out once into the streets, in the lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the crippled and the blind in the lame. The streets and lanes of the city were where they were the outcasts of the community. The slave said, master, what you've commanded has been done and still there is room. The master said to the slave, Go out into the highways and along the hedges and compel them to come in so that my house may be filled. Highways indicate the well traveled roads.
Speaker 1:Hedges were like fences where beggars rest for protection. It was an invitation to the people outside the community. Theologically, this is the invitation to the Gentiles. Jesus was God was rejected by the Jews, went out to the Gentiles. Despite the rejection of his chosen people, God continues to invite others to his banquet.
Speaker 1:What does that have to do with being a mom? The first time I considered what that happened, what that had to do with being a mom, It was 1988, and I was a maid on a tugboat. And the captain and I did most of the work. The tugboat pushed an oil barge and we refueled ships. And the oil barge would work 10 or 12 hours, but we would only go by tugboat 1 or 2 hours.
Speaker 1:So the captain and I did the least amount of work, so we ended up being the cooks. And so, I talked to my mom, got some ideas of how to cook, and I cooked the first meal of my life. And as I put that on the table, can I tell you what flashed back to me? My I had 6 siblings, and our house was not necessarily mild mannered. Okay?
Speaker 1:And and honestly, as I put that out on the table, here's what I heard, Not that again, mom. We had that last week. Oh mom, I hate that. And I never realized how personal cooking was. And I never realized how my mother went through daily rejection.
Speaker 1:She was making a banquet. It was her home every day. And she wanted her children to live in the beauty of that. And your children, like my children, are fallen human beings. And they accept that, and they don't accept that.
Speaker 1:Now, come on. Those of you who have little children and you plan the day at the park, right? And your child who you thought was potty trained isn't. I don't know what happens to sabotage that day at the park, But I think, in a daily sort of way, you're preparing banquets and you're going through rejection every day as a mom, because you want a rich, bountiful, beautiful relational world. It's what you've been made for.
Speaker 1:When Dawn had her miscarriage at 16 weeks, I began to see that the hope that was dashed in that, and the potential relationship that she wouldn't have, what that meant to her. Mothering, and I've said a little bit about this, it's holding on and letting go. We get pregnant. Dawn and I do this. Miscarriage, we do this.
Speaker 1:We have a child, we do this. We have a second child, it's just too hard, we do this. You know, then we homeschooled, and then we sent all our 3 daughters to public school at the same time. So Dawn didn't go through one child at a time into kindergarten. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:She went from the beauty of homeschooling, I can remember the girls carrying their buckets out to the table. My wife, by training, is an educator. And if there's anything she's wanted for my girls, it's for them to love learning. And they were involved in that in homeschooling, and then she let go of that and sent them all to public school at the same time. And after about 6 or 7 weeks, or maybe longer, Dawn cried forever, but after about 6 or 7 weeks, I said, sweetie, you gotta stop talking about how hard this is for you.
Speaker 1:The girls are afraid to talk about how much they enjoy school. You can tell me and tell friends, but the girls are enjoying school. Okay? That was, oh, in the first, that was her first major look above mother head. Do you know, in the last 5 weeks, we have bought a third car that our teenager is driving.
Speaker 1:Our other one got her permit. They both went to the homecoming dance. One of them has a boyfriend. And before the homecoming dance, she said this to me, so and so and I want to go and do this before the homecoming dance. And I never felt outside the circle for that moment.
Speaker 1:You know, she would talk about her friends wanting to do something, but it felt really different when she said, her and this boy want to do something. And I was like, you what? When? Okay. Well, I think as a mom, you you can't compartmentalize.
Speaker 1:Alright? Like, I'll just give you another example. When Dawn went to her 1st back to school night in middle school, like, she walked into that school and and I believe she felt everything those girls were going to feel walking through that middle school. And when they walked through that middle school, she felt it tons more than them. She felt it for them.
Speaker 1:I can remember saying to one of our girls, sweetie, aren't you anxious? Like I could see the teenage anxiety all over her. She said, no, I'm not anxious. We were feeling a lot of that anxiety for her, my wife much more. Alright?
Speaker 1:So that is just why I tell the parable of the great banquet, because that's a picture of God's femininity, his heart. Despite rejection, he keeps inviting. So I would say that this is the redeemed heart of a mom. As the joy of the Lord is her strength, and let me just say something about this. Remember that passage where I said early on, the Lord is leading us in his triumphal procession?
Speaker 1:God has already overcome evil, and he lives in the victory of redemption. He wants us to join in that. Moms, when the pain of the curse causes you to look down and get busy and anxious, you forget that you're part of a triumphal procession. I want the joy of the Lord to be your strength. On some level, your joy as a mom is gonna come and go, because it's hard, and it's tiring, and it's beautiful, and it's painful.
Speaker 1:And you're going to have to keep realizing you're just a vessel, and the Lord is using this to lift you and your children up into a much more beautiful story. That is the joy of the Lord is your strength. So redeem heart of a mind, mom, is the joy of the Lord is her strength. Through the ups and downs of family life, she is more able to feel the pangs of rejection, while still graciously inviting her family to taste the banquet God is expressing through her. The joy of the Lord is her strength.
Speaker 1:Through the ups and downs of family life, she's more able to feel the pangs of rejection, while still graciously inviting her family to taste the banquet God is expressing through her. I don't know. The beautiful picnic that you planned with your I mean, I think of how how much humbler we became as parents. I remember our first beach vacation with a 6 month old, and a 2 year old, and a 4 year old. Y'all, that was not smart.
Speaker 1:Okay? And after that vacation, we thought what we should do is spend all that we should stay in Birmingham, and spend all that money to go to a hotel and get a babysitter for 2 days. Okay? Much wiser. But this was this great banquet.
Speaker 1:And Dawn had such a hard week because her and I were thinking vacation. And then, we realized, when you go away with those little kids and you don't have all your all the baby stuff we have these days, that's not a vacation. And that feels like rejection, and it feels like pain, and it's hard to hear God's kindness in the middle of that, where something inside you says, that doesn't have to own us. That doesn't have to own us. We're part of a bigger story.
Speaker 1:So, here's what I've said so far. The, Britannica online definition I started with that art is the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others. You want to be a vessel to help your children room and become an aroma. You don't want them to be little robots. You want much more than that.
Speaker 1:And only as you parent freely from your love and from your passion can you do that. What's in the way of that is this curse that never goes away, and it's not there because you're doing something wrong. It's a reminder that you keep needing the Lord. And as you see it that way, something and it will talk about how next session, how you grow into that, it gives you a strength where you can continue being a person who invites, and you can stay open hearted and loving. So we need to parent mother this way.
Speaker 1:This is the obstacle, the curse. Here's what we're aiming for, the redeemed heart of a woman, that despite rejection can continue to invite. So how do you go into grow into, kind of, breathing and living redemption as a mom? How do you let the pain help draw you into more of the Lord that your children taste as a result? How do we do that?
Speaker 1:What are we aiming to do? The first thing is, crazy as this may seem, don't be ashamed of your desire for relationship. It's just like God's. Knowing your desire for relationship is holy, will help you grow into invitation as a way of life. In some ways as a mom, especially in our culture, as you have young kids, you move more and more away from good, nourishing feminine relationship.
Speaker 1:Because if you're with friends, you're tired, or you have kids crawling around, or you just don't have the margins and margins and the energy and space to be nourished in relationship, so it helps you want it even more. And then, as you're wrestling with kids and as it's successful and not successful, and you look at the future and wonder, what are my kids really going to be? It tends to be a time where I see women really begin to hate their desire for relationship, instead of really believing it's from the Lord. Okay? So the first thing I'm saying is, don't be ashamed of your desire for relationship.
Speaker 1:It's just like God's. Here's what Sharon Hirsch says. When a woman courageously stares into the eyes of her desperation, she need not collapse in shame or cover up with pretense. Her desperation to be connected, to have a rich relational world. The yearning, she says, for relationship is not an indication that something is wrong with her, but that something is profoundly right.
Speaker 1:Right? Your desire for deep connection with your children, for your desire for them to be connected and to have a rich relational world is from God. It's God given. Your desire, you're gonna want to be fruitful and multiply. You have to see that that is a holy, holy thing, because in many ways, this world will close in on it.
Speaker 1:I'll I'll give you an example. It may not be a great one, but when my oldest daughter, she in 7th grade, she did cross country and then played basketball. And we were sitting around with some other families. And the mothers were like, isn't she going to play soccer too? And we were like, we really struggle with letting her do 2 things because the schedule is so busy and so full, and no, she's not going to play soccer.
Speaker 1:And they no, she can play soccer. She can do it, and they kept coming after us. And part of what that gets with you as a mom in that moment is, are their daughters still gonna be friends with Amy if we don't do what they want? Are we setting Amy up for rejection if she doesn't do that? And really, we thought her heart needs the rest of not doing another sport.
Speaker 1:Like, we need to say no and live with the, fallout of that. But her desire are we're gonna stay open to, we want her to be connected, we're going to try to teach her how to be connected, but we're not going to measure and and shut down and just keep her busy as the way to be connected. We're not going to do that. We're going to keep thinking our longing for connection is really good, but we're not going to do everything and maneuver and live in a way where we're trying to be in control of that. This is again, by Sharon Hirsch.
Speaker 1:And she's just trying to help you see and feel how your holy desire for your children is similar to God's. So she says this, I cannot forget my own mother's desperate wandering. She discovered that my wayward brother, addicted to cocaine, had stolen 1,000 of dollars from her bank account. The only way she could stop payment on the forged checks and hinder his potential purchase of more drugs was to press charges against her own son. Tears coursed down both of our faces as she stood in the district attorney's desk, pen in hand, to sign papers condemning her youngest son to an arrest warrant and a bleak future.
Speaker 1:We didn't know where he was. As she shakily signed her name, she whispered, where are you? Then she did the strangest thing. She wrote on her hand. I asked, mom, what are you writing?
Speaker 1:She choked back her tears. I'm writing the number of his warrant. It's all I know about him right now. The hush in the musty gray Jefferson County District Attorney's Office startled me. I did not know then that it was holy.
Speaker 1:Years later I would read words from the prophet Isaiah that would inform me that my mother's anguished effects actions reflected that of the one who said, I've called you from the womb. From the body of your mother, I have named your name. Does a woman forget her baby at the breast or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if I forget These forget, I will never forget you. See, I have branded you on the palms of my hand.
Speaker 1:That moment, I think, for all of you in ways you can articulate and not articulate, when you held that newborn baby in your arms, something got set afire. And you can either stay open to your desire for connection, or you can try to control it or shut it down and back away from it. But if you're going to be open to that desire, as we talked last time, there's going to be rejection, And so you have to learn, how do I navigate through that and let the Lord hold me, so that I stay open to it in strength? I want you to notice something about the Lord in the parable of the great banquet. He was actually wounded that the first guests don't come.
Speaker 1:And the slave came back and reported this to his master. And the head of the household became angry, this is representing God, and said to his slave, go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the crippled in the lame. The fact that mothering hurts has nothing to do with your performance. It hurts because you're in a fallen world. The months, and I really mean the months, my wife wept after we sent all our kids to public school.
Speaker 1:As a father, as a husband, as a believer, they were some of the most some of the hardest and most encouraging months for me as a father. Because the scriptures say this, sorrow is better than laughter, because sorrow has a refining influence on you. It also says this about godly sorrow, we'll never regret that kind of sorrow. It helps us to turn away from sin and seek salvation. And then it says this, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
Speaker 1:When my wife took her first peak above being an active mother, beyond taking care of the kids every day, she felt the grief and a loss. I didn't know this would change so quickly. And every tear she cried for those months said this, God, I need you. Hold me. Strengthen me.
Speaker 1:As I let these girls go, I don't want to die to my heart. I need you to hold me. I need you to remind me that you have a plan that I often don't see. Strengthen me. Encourage me.
Speaker 1:Live in me. And as I watched that same woman, as I watched that same woman walk through adolescence and hear her daughter say things to her that she never planned on. And as I've seen her still love them and go back for more, as we watch them date and I can't imagine what it will be like as they get married. But I see a strength in my wife. She's still moving towards them.
Speaker 1:She's still loving them. She doesn't control them less and more. She controls them less. And I believe those moments where she let the pain of letting them go and wrestle that out with God, something was birthed inside of her that she lives in today as a mom. Okay?
Speaker 1:It says this in Corinthians, But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God, not from us. Jars of clay are physical bodies. We have this treasure, the power's from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed perplexed, but not in despair persecuted, but not abandoned struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry about in the body the death of Jesus so his life may also be revealed in our body.
Speaker 1:For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, says life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then death it is working in us, but life is working in in you. Okay? What he's talking about is this process of how life and death work together. And I said this before, but Okay.
Speaker 1:You hold on and you let go. You hold on and you let go. I believe the most important times as a mother is when you're watching them go to school, when they go out on their 1st date, when they enter the fallenness of this world, and you feel some worry, some pang, and some aches. In that moment, do you turn towards, how am I gonna make sure it all goes right? Or do you turn to, Lord, hold me, comfort me, tell me that you have something for them that I can't see?
Speaker 1:Because I want to make sure that it all works right, and I can't. So I think if you hold on, if you're not ashamed of your desire for relationship, but through rejection, you keep saying it's a good and holy thing, And as I experience some pain, as I experience some frustration, you're learning more and more how to say, Lord, hold me, comfort me. Remember what it says in Revelation, it talks about having a lukewarm faith. It says, I wish you were hot or cold, but, I just don't want you to be lukewarm. Well then, after that it says, buy gold from me that is refined by fire.
Speaker 1:And that is a reference to how trials purify our faith. And then it says, enter into those trials, and as you're into those trials, wait for God to clothe you. It says, before it says, you're lukewarm, it says, the reason you're lukewarm is because you're well you think you're well fed and you have need of nothing, but you don't know that you're poor, blind, miserable, and naked. And this great desire you have for everything beautiful for your children, you want to get it all right, so that they love you and everything goes well. But more and more, you're going to be turning it over and saying, Lord, it's on your shoulders.
Speaker 1:Help me to trust you and participate with you. We start out Well, not we, you guys start out wanting to be super mom and then you realize, if I could just be kind to my kids and give them some guidance, I'll really be grateful. Alright? Alright. So don't be ashamed of your desire for relationship.
Speaker 1:It's just like God's. Knowing your desire for relationship is holy will help you grow into invitation as a way of life. The feeling of rejection, loss, pain opens you up to more of the lore. So don't be ashamed of your desire for relationship. It's just like God's.
Speaker 1:Alright. The second thing, and I'm going to explain this, is after being deconstructed, and I'll explain what that means as a woman, open up to your own beauty and giftedness. Do not be afraid to embrace where you do things well. If you do not have a growing sense of your own gifts, you're giving to the children will be a man demand to prove your worth or to keep them obligated. Here's what I've happened.
Speaker 1:Here's what I've watched with women. Let's say, you were a woman that really is a beautiful decorator, and so you are going to really decorate your nursery really well, and you get busy doing that. And you just see that you have all these gifts, and you think, I'm just going to do it well, and my kids are just going to live in the beauty of all my giftedness. Okay? And I think if the weight of your life as a woman is like a £100, I think welcoming a child in the physical, spiritual, relational world is like taking on a £100.
Speaker 1:After our birth of Amy, our first daughter, my wife went into about 9 months of insomnia. Some of that was hormonally influenced, when she stopped breastfeeding, sooner than she wanted to, a simple death. The doctor recommended it because it was going to help her sleep better. She didn't want to give it up that soon. Those beautiful motherhood dreams die in ways you don't want them to.
Speaker 1:Okay? But it was also some anxiety. Do you know she didn't I mean, think about having 9 months of insomnia with a newborn, you're not sleeping anyway. That's probably, you kind of have insomnia anyway. Right?
Speaker 1:But from that point on, sleeping became really difficult for Dawn, so much so that I got post traumatic sleep disorder, because it got to the point where if I moved at all, she woke up. So I was afraid to breathe when I got in the bed. Do you all know that we we ended up because neither of us, after a year or 2 that we're getting a good sleep, we started sleeping in separate beds. And it was like, who's in the guest room tonight? Okay?
Speaker 1:For 7 years. That's not what you dream of when you get married. And then, as the kids got a little bit older and we started sleeping in her parents' double bed down in Fairhope, when we to visit them, we realized, we can sleep in a double bed. I mean, a king-size bed. We were in a smaller bed.
Speaker 1:So we realized, woah, if we get far enough apart, we can sleep together. And so then our goal became, we'll get enough money to have a big bed. And we eventually got it and now, you know, for the 10, 12 years since, we're sleeping in the same bed. Alright? So that £100 of welcoming Amy began to deconstruct my wife.
Speaker 1:2 years later, she took on another £100. And 2 years later, after that, she took on another £100. Metaphorically, before she had children, her life was like a £100. 6 years later, it was £400. And I want to tell you this, women, moms, watching my wife, watching the women I counsel, I see almost every woman go through what I call a great deconstruction.
Speaker 1:Alright? Because you're confident, and you're confident, and you're fun, and you're all these really cool things. And then you welcome all this weight onto you, and it gets really heavy. And then you have to go about, how do I turn that weight over to the Lord? How do I let him help me carry that?
Speaker 1:How do I realize that all my great decorating isn't going to necessarily carry the day? I'm poor, blind, miserable and naked. How do I realize that my hope will never be my performance but this kind of day in and day out trusting that the Lord is going to do something I can't see? Because that's your hope. Think about how faith is defined.
Speaker 1:It's being sure of what you hope for and more certain of what you do not see. But do you know how hope is defined? Hope that is seen is not hope. Why does one hope for what he sees, if we hope for what we do not see? With perseverance, we wait for it.
Speaker 1:The whole reason I'm not going to tell you about how to perform as a better mom, because what I want for you is a richer faith and a more alive imagination, wherein the craziness of everyday life, you see that little beauty in your child that you're fighting for, that you believe is gonna be there 15, 20, 30 years from now, and that you can't produce it. You can cooperate with the Lord and wait for it to happen. But your imagination, seeing that beauty in your child and believing the best about them, is way more important than all the dutiful stuff you do as a mom. So after being deconstructed, I want you to think a little bit about being your mom. Because here's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Before you welcome the kids, if you're anything like most people, you're thinking about what you have to be a good mom. And then years into it, you realize, I don't think I have that much good. That's the deconstruction. Now it's at the point where you really feel like mothering isn't going to stand and fall on me, I don't really have that many gifts, that I want you to begin to embrace the unique beauty of who you are as a mom, because if that's what your kids really, really need, way more than a lot of the things you're going to try to do for them. Alright?
Speaker 1:It says this, in 1st Timothy 2:15, but women will be saved through childbearing. Now, that's a reference back to the curse. And that's a conservative word for word translation, that the pain in childbirth will save you. Well, the New Living Translation gives you an alternate reading. It says this, but women will be saved by accepting their role as mothers, and by continuing to live in faith, love, holiness and modesty.
Speaker 1:To me, what that great deconstruct construction shows, where you need faith, and Philip Yancey defines faith this way, believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse, where you need more faith than anywhere in this world is being a mom. And as you learn to cultivate your faith, alright, continuing to live in faith, love, holiness and modesty, that's your hope. Alright? Now, I want to say and talk about something that gets in the way. Because as you're going through this deconstruction, and you're losing the sense of how great you are as a person, somehow all those mothers around you, their greatness seems to start beating you up.
Speaker 1:If I could only do like this mother, she seems so organized, or that mother seems so relaxed, or this mother seems that way. And see, their kids seem so much better because I don't live with them. Alright? You live with your kids, you see them at their worst. You see everyone else at their best, in general.
Speaker 1:You know, now I think, this will sound crazy to you, but the primary passion a woman has to learn how to follow is jealousy, is jealousy. You know that God's a jealous God. Right? I think a woman has a passion for herself and her those in her world to be faithful to relationships. Jealousy is a relational passion.
Speaker 1:I want to be connected to my God and those people I love. But jealousy be can can become a manipulative, destructive neighbors. How about that passage? Can I read it again? Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors.
Speaker 1:I want you to pause. And at first, I want you to think about yourself, and in a second we'll talk about your children. But I want to ask you moms, when you sit around and talk about mothering, are you sharing tidbits about how to be better mothers, How to do a time out? How to discipline? How to feed?
Speaker 1:How to schedule? I want to I really want you to think about this for a second. When's the last time you looked at your good friend? It's what I would have wanted my wife to hear more of, even from me in this hard years. Hon, you are a winsome woman.
Speaker 1:You love relationship at the expense of a neat house. I don't want the house to be neat, even though I get mad about it. I really want our girls to taste your winsomeness, because that's what they need. How often are you looking at your friends, and you're speaking to the essence of who they are as a woman, what they really give their children that nobody else in this world can give them. Ashley, you see beauty.
Speaker 1:Your kids will be those who love beauty because they live with you. How often do you hear that? Or do you get the advice, do more, work harder, get better? Alright? I want you as moms to help each other celebrate the real essence, the uniqueness of who you are.
Speaker 1:Because jealousy tends to, even in your women's group, shut that down. Because if one woman starts talking about her beauty, we better cover that over because I'm starting to get ashamed. Alright? Takes a little bit of humility to think that someone has a gift you don't have and to affirm that. Alright?
Speaker 1:Here's a passage. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is a source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it's the same God who does the work in all of us. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part if the foot says, or the mom who is this way says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not a hand, that does not make it any less a part of the body.
Speaker 1:And if the ear says, I'm not a part of body because I'm not an eye, would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body was an ear, how would you smell anything? Okay. So the mom who's really good organized and she makes the clothes for her kids, and you're never going to be that way, when she's with you, she needs to see that you're earthy and fun and cool, and you give that to your kids, and that she needs a little bit more of that.
Speaker 1:And when she's with you, she's reminded to not make clothes that week and to enjoy her kids a little bit more, where you're like, I really could do this for my kid. I could make a little something, and I wanna do that. You learn from each other instead of feeling ashamed by each other. Does that make sense? But we don't do that well in community.
Speaker 1:Jealousy is not to help me strive to be like someone else. It gives me more passion to live my uniqueness and share those with that I love. I want to tell you, moms, why your children want to be with you Because you're their mother. Do you know why your children wanna be with you? Because you're their mother.
Speaker 1:Do you know 20 years from now why they'll want to be with you? Because you're their mother. What woman in here, if you have a good relationship with your mom, isn't grateful for it, if you don't have a good relationship with your mom, wishes it was better? Is that not true for anybody in here? You have an innate desire to be connected to your parents.
Speaker 1:What you can do is destroy that or try to work with it. But the more you relax and realize, my kids are gonna want me and who I am, and I don't have to work to make that happen, in many ways I have to relax and try to be more of who I am. When my daughters talk about their mother and what they like most, they'll remember when they were kids and she would dance with them in the kitchen. Okay? I can remember, and this is where I grew as a father, it was a Friday, and I had gotten home from work, and there were dishes to be done that had been there for a while.
Speaker 1:And the kids were younger and I just thought Now before, I would have thought, and this is my own sinfulness, Dawn is seeing those dishes and she'll think, I'm just gonna do them. And so then I would have been mad doing the dishes and here is my thought. No, Dawn saw that Abby needed help with homework with this, and Amy needed a conversation with that, and Elise needed this, and she was doing relationships, she didn't see the dishes. And I washed the dishes and I didn't even remind her when I went I do remind you too much, but I didn't remind you that day when I went back into the room that I just did the dishes, because I was able to remember the beauty of what my girls really get from their mother. Okay?
Speaker 1:So, how do you celebrate in each other the good you give your kids? Your jealousy keeps you from that. While boasting may be the opposite of humility, true humility is not the result of self depreciation. It is rather the fruit of a keen eyed ability to see oneself realistically as a flawed and gifted creature like all other human beings. Here's the gift of what I call the great deconstruction.
Speaker 1:As you take the weight of kids onto yourself, and somehow that overburdens you, where you don't where you begin to question, what good do you really have to give? At that point, where you're more humble and you don't think you're gonna rule the day by all your giftedness, I want you to begin to embrace the unique beauty that your kids will taste from you that nobody else in the world ever will. And I want you to help your friends do that. Okay? My girls, they have received Dawn's essence in beautiful ways.
Speaker 1:They can feel really comfortable in a dress and wear jeans and a t shirt. Okay, like their mother. They love others with passion, like their mother. I remember Abby's, one of her birthday parties, and she was getting gifts. And like her mother, like, she was jumping on the people for the gift they had given.
Speaker 1:And I was like, I want to give her a gift if she's going to enjoy me that much, okay? That's her mother, and she embodies that from her mother. They all really love good food. Now Dawn is really strong about eating good food, and she's really healthy, and so she's beat up by some of the junk food they eat. But I know, compared to all the kids out there, that they really eat well, like their mother.
Speaker 1:And you know another beautiful thing, and this is a really rare thing in our culture, they don't have food issues because their mom doesn't. That's a holy thing their mom has given them. They love good books more than Their their mom wants them to love good books and and read them all the time. They love good books more than she realizes, and I hear it in the way they talk about things. And they really have a sense of what real learning is.
Speaker 1:They can talk about their teachers who really love learning and they get it from them, and they can talk about their teachers who don't. Now my wife is so aching over those bad teachers that she's not seeing how well they're really learning what real learning is. But I can see it. She should listen to me sometimes about what a good mom she is. Alright?
Speaker 1:Now, the thing is, they have a real essence of their mom. They have some of their dad, and they have some of their own stuff. So they're not little idols, they're not completely like their mom, but they are really getting from Dawn what they should get, the essence of who she is. Alright? So as you let go of trying to be supermom, as a way to fool your friends or obligate your kids to stay in relationship with you.
Speaker 1:You hear that? Okay. Or super moms, as a way to fool your friends, or obligate your kids to stay in relationship with you. If I do it all right, they'll love me. Okay?
Speaker 1:You begin to accept the unique good God brings through you and that is enough. Paul asked three times for this really big thing to be removed. I'm sure you moms have asked, Lord, I don't want mothering to be so painful. Take this curse away. I want to know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I want a plan. God, make this work for me. Take it away. And you know what God says? My grace is sufficient for you.
Speaker 1:For power is perfected in weakness. Paul said, I'm more excited about insults and persecutions and distresses, because when I'm weak, then I'm strong. One of the most beautiful gifts we have given our children is that we are honest about our weaknesses, and we don't pretend about how bad we are. And it's really clear to them, and they say it to us at times in ways that frustrates us. Okay.
Speaker 1:My 13 year old said to her mom one time, this is the hardest period of my life. Don't you think you should be helping me, not making it harder? Okay? We let our kids say some of those things. And as we do that, you know what we're teaching them?
Speaker 1:The most important thing we want them to learn, powers perfect in their weakness. In our weaknesses, in our failures, in the beautiful vacations we thought we would have, that oftentimes haven't happened, you've had to reach out for somebody bigger than us, and that's what we want. Okay? But there is an essence in you guys as moms that I want your kids to get. So as you're deconstructed, and you don't think you're that good, you're more poor, blind, miserable and naked, I want you to start hearing and seeing the beauty of who you are.
Speaker 1:And if your husband tries to tell you, say thank you. Okay? Don't fight him on it. Alright. Let's go to the last thing.
Speaker 1:Alright. Where am I? Okay. Don't be blah blah. There's one other thing here.
Speaker 1:Alright. Okay. As you Wait. I got to That's why I'm not finding it. Got to turn the page.
Speaker 1:Sorry, y'all. Okay. Keep the Resisting the tendency to parent out of fear, nourish your faith, so that your imagination is alive with hope and you help your children embrace their uniqueness. Okay? I'll tell you a quick story.
Speaker 1:This is when my middle daughter, who's now 15, was 3, I think. Some of you heard the story, she wanted a 2 piece bathing suit for her birthday, and that's all she wanted. And she talked about it all the time. So much so, that the neighbor across the street, who was a little older, because we weren't getting her the 2 piece bathing suit, wrapped up her old one and got it for our daughter. And she That was the present, old stanky bathing suit.
Speaker 1:She ran into the room and put on and came out like she was full figured. And I thought, prostitution, premarital sex, whole host of things. And my wife, in all her wisdom said, let's let her wear it. Relax. And we let her wear it to the pool.
Speaker 1:And the 1st day she wore it at the pool, I swear, it felt like she was aware of her sexuality and I thought tankini and a 1 piece and it was never a big deal. But you know what I wanted to do in my fear over my dead body? You will get a 2 piece And you will never get one, if I have anything to say about it. And had we taken that fear based approach, she probably would have bought one on her own by now somehow. And she would what?
Speaker 1:And she would be a far different girl. But I will say this, as we have messed up and loved and done some good things and not some good things, I think that girl knows her beauty and has some strength in it. I got a text on Friday. It said, dad, guess what? I text back and said, what?
Speaker 1:She texted back and said, I got a boyfriend. Okay? I heard a little bit of a story last night that I hadn't heard. He took her to lunch and my daughter was aware that 3 different times he was trying to get out, that he wanted to ask Abby to be her boyfriend, and she didn't take care of him. Alright.
Speaker 1:Now, y'all come on, be with me. She's a girl, and she didn't take care of the guy. We don't do that well in this culture. She made him work, and then after she he asked it, she said, yes. Thank you, Jesus.
Speaker 1:Okay? She made the dude work, because she has a sense that she's beautiful, and yet she's handling it with some level of control, because we haven't just parented out of fear. Okay? So, fear for a mom engenders self absorption, and it leads to demands and control. If you parent out of fear, I've got to do it right, it's on me, it becomes more about you and more what you can control.
Speaker 1:And I think when you keep working to prevent a future fear, you hasten its coming. The more you try to prevent something, the more you produce it. And it says this about the Proverbs 31 woman, she's clothed with strength and dignity and she laughs with no fear of the future. So I want to ask you a question. Why do you teach your child not to run across the street without looking?
Speaker 1:Why do you teach your child not to run across the street without looking? Anybody got an answer? What? What's that? Car.
Speaker 1:Anyone disagree with that answer? Say they don't get hit by a car? Okay. I figured that would be the answer. Do you know, it says this, and just it is appointed for a man to die once, and after that comes the judgment.
Speaker 1:Women, can your child die apart from God's sovereignty? Okay? Now I'm not saying you don't teach your children to look before you but what I'm trying to say is you don't determine when they die. And that is not in your hands. Okay?
Speaker 1:I think potential physical danger is to help a child to let go of foolishness or self reliance and trust someone bigger. Remember, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Our 17 year old, the way she's approaching driving is a little bit foolish. And when we want to talk to her about it, she's not all that keen on listening to what we have to say, and it makes us afraid. And I have to remember, it's a point at once, a man should die, that we can't thwart God's sovereignty.
Speaker 1:What I think potential physical danger does is to help a child to learn that they're foolish. So they burn their hand, they skin their knee, they get careless. There's plenty of opportunities, in addition to running across the street, for your child to learn that they're foolish and that they're proud and that they think they know better. So I think it's a relational building mechanism. I think the fear of your child, it's not a legitimate fear that they're gonna die unless you teach them.
Speaker 1:You need to teach them. But what you're teaching them is, you're foolish and you've got to learn to trust me. And if you learn to trust me in general, you will have a better life. That may mean you do or do not get killed going across the street because there can be a drunk driver and you could be looking and he could be going a lot faster than you want him to go. Or you're on the side of the road and Okay.
Speaker 1:We don't hold our children in our hands, their life or death. But this fear of physical danger that's all around them, not just crossing the street, It's a relational building mechanism, because they will stumble over it. And then they will think, oh, I should have listened to my parents, and they might listen a little better. And then they think, oh, my parents weren't so stupid. Like, my parents did say, this is relational danger.
Speaker 1:My mom said it was going to be cold, bring a coat. And then when I didn't, I thought, oh, I should have listened to mom. And then maybe the next time they do, a little bit more. But I see my children, I think their foolishness is decreasing but it's still there. And you know, I'm 48 and I kind of listen to advice.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of foolish, and I'm kind of self reliant. I realize a whole lot more that I'm poor, blind, miserable and naked, but I listen to others better, and I take help more easily. So I just say that because you're going to run into this time and time again, because you're going to be told, like ours were in high school, that you have to take all these honor courses, and take the ACT five times, and you have to do all these things. Because if you're not in control of their destiny, they don't have a destiny. And you know what?
Speaker 1:As my daughter looks at college, I want it to be a relational billing experience, not a pass or fail experience. She is going to go to the college that God wants her to go to, and I could stand on my head to try to prevent it, and I'm not gonna. But we can find out what she likes and what she doesn't like, and she can realize that we have money that we have and money that we don't have. And she can learn of us, and we can learn of her. It's a relational building experience.
Speaker 1:It's not a pass or fail experience. And the more your fear tells you everything you do is pass or fail, the more it diminishes your relationship with them. But the more it diminishes your ability to help them live freely. Okay? Because I kind of like that Amy has she could have taken more honors courses, and and she probably should have taken a less harder course this time, so that she could have been more of who she is.
Speaker 1:I think high school is as much about learning who she is as getting good grades, Because I want to raise her according to her bent, not according to what the world's standards are. And so if you're parenting out of fear, you're following laws and rules in the culture, and you're not seeing who your child is and encouraging them in that. Our 3rd born, who's really the most healthiest, when she was 3 years old, my wife and I looked at each other and said, we should really start parenting her. And she doesn't carry the burden of her parents' expectations like the other 2. And like, I can remember a couple years ago, when my wife said to her something about her grades.
Speaker 1:She said, mom, they're all a's and b's, relax. Like, if you really think I'm gonna take school that seriously, you're you need to get over it. And can I tell you, she's still communicating that? Alright? And that is her.
Speaker 1:And she is social and fun and free, and the Lord's going to use that, and she's not going to take the kind of honor courses my first born took because they have different events. And so the less you parent out of fear, the more you see who they are, and you can help them be who they are, their gifts. But jealousy, that bad jealousy, makes us want them to fit in. Like, if they do what their friends are doing, then they're going to be connected. One of the reasons I think my daughters are growing in good connection has more to do with their confidence and their ability to navigate through the difficulty of relationship with a little less manipulation and fear than other kids, because of how we're raising them.
Speaker 1:So, godly jealousy in a woman is to nurture relationship with God and others. Use the rejections in this world not to turn you towards fear and more control with your children, to help your children become more connected to you, to others who give them the gospel and God. We've wanted to protect our kids from any pain. But as we've let them face and we want them to step into who they are. Okay?
Speaker 1:So, I could read that same thing about spiritual gifts that I read about moms. Just remember, your kids have an incredible uniqueness and if you parent out of fear, you won't see it. You'll shut it down. You want a parent out of faith and you want to have imagination. Like, I think there'll be years.
Speaker 1:My my daughter, my Abby, passionate, dramatic, Her dream for a long time was to go to Hollywood. And that dream's dying. It will not die in my heart. I want her to study drama. I don't care if it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to make a go of it, because I know that dream is still in her. And the world has a way of killing your dreams. But it's her dad. I'm not letting that go for her. And if she wants to do something different, and it's real, and it's God breathed, I'll help her do that.
Speaker 1:But I think her her desire to act and do that was God breathed. And I don't know where that will lead to. But I want to help support it. And I don't want to follow all the other crap that's out there that tells me how to love my child. Okay?
Speaker 1:So, what you tell yourself when your child first falls down, goes to school, leaves for college, gets married, will determine the fruitfulness of your mother and relational world. When they're in difficulty, when when it's threatening that your relations you may lose relationship with them, or they may lose relationship with their others, how you are learning to bear up under the curse. Women, if you learn that the curse is your gift to help you trust more of the Lord, guess what you're gonna teach your children? Because they're kids who are gonna wanna be connected, and they're gonna learn more how to rely on Lord and become who he is, as he speaks to them and leads them. Alright?
Speaker 1:As your kids learn their gifts, it will be a aroma of life and death. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are life giving perfume. My Amy embodies truth, My Abby embodies beauty and my Elise embodies kindness. Amy, her friends, her one friend had a difficult thing with a boyfriend and called Amy over to talk with her.
Speaker 1:And Amy got on the phone with the boyfriend and said some really strong things with the boyfriend because he kissed another girl. And she spoke truth to that dude and then said, but I'm not saying you're not a good guy, that was just a really bad move. Truth and grace. Amy can speak some truth. And that has hurt her in some relationships, and it's helped her in some relationships.
Speaker 1:But overall, as we learn to teach her how to hold that, she becomes more of who she is. Abby loves beauty. You know, beauty is always protruding outside the lines. Lines. You know that.
Speaker 1:Right? It's good art. Abby is always protruding outside the lines. And as we help her to be comfortable with that and not be afraid of that, she becomes more of who she is. My Elise, when I hug her, I just melt.
Speaker 1:She's kindness on steroids. Alright? And you know what? Kind people get taken advantage of in this world. So we we have to keep teaching her how to be strong.
Speaker 1:And if we just parent out of fear, we would try to protect her from everything. I want her to offer her kindness and realize some will take advantage of it. So it's wise to say no and yes, and we're just trying to teach her wisdom. But we're not going to give her a plan on how to be a kind person, so you're not hurt, because we realized she's going to have to live through the curse, and we got to teach her how to live like that. Okay?
Speaker 1:So as you parent out of fear, you shut down. You don't see your child's uniqueness and you don't help, through the spirit, breathe their uniqueness into them, so that they live it more freely. So I'll summarize. How do you grow into a redeemed mom? Here's what I'm saying as a redeemed mom.
Speaker 1:The joy of the Lord is your strength, through the ups and downs of family life. You're more able to feel the pains of rejection while still graciously inviting her family to taste the banquet God is expressing through her. The first thing, don't be ashamed of your relationship. You want connection and you bring something beautiful to connection. Don't ever give that up.
Speaker 1:Then moms, as you're deconstructed, as you begin to think, well, I don't have as much good as I thought, you're more humble. Learn to realize the essence of what your goodness is and offer that with more passion. And realize that your kids will taste of that and learn of that, not in fullness. They're not going to be just like you, but they're going to get parts of you and I really want you to enjoy when you give them those things. And the third thing is keep resisting the tendency to parent out of fear.
Speaker 1:Nourish your faith. Faith is believing in advance, but will only make sense in reverse. You're going to see your kids at their worst. You're going to worry more about them than you should. See this little beauty that is Christ's essence in them, and and continue to imagine what that looks like as a 10 year old, and an 18 year old, and a 28 year old, and a 30 year old.
Speaker 1:Because you're gonna be shut down, you're gonna see their sin and their stuff and be overwhelmed. And I want your countenances up, where you have an imagination, hope that is not seen is not hope. Why does one hope for what he sees, but if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait for it? I want you to hold on to things for your kids that they're not going to be able to because the world will try to beat it out of them. Don't parent out of fear.
Speaker 1:Parent out of faith. Okay. So your imagination is alive with hope and you help your children embrace their uniqueness. Let's pray and maybe we'll do some question and answers. Let me just pray for you all.
Speaker 1:Lord, I pray whatever is honorable and right and true that I talked about that could be helpful to these mothers. I pray it would be helpful. Someone else doing it better, and they feel bad about what they do. I really pray that you would help these moms hear you speaking to them kindly, affectionately, affirmatively. Lord, you don't see them the way the world sees them, you see their hearts, who they really are as moms, the essence of where you reflect them in a way no one else could.
Speaker 1:I pray they were more in touch with that and they were more in touch with giving that to their children. And as I pray, as they begin to see the essence of who you are in their children, that against this world they would learn to nourish and fight for that and wait for it to be unfolded in time. Whatever is honorable, right, and true, Lord, that any of these moms have heard, help them to hear it again and to walk in it, Lord. Just give them the strength and faith to follow whatever you spoken to them. In Jesus name, amen.