Messy Parenting

 Parenting is messy sometimes.  I’m not just talking about the vomit, bibs slathered with baby food, muddy cleats, upside down bowls of oatmeal on the floor (oh yes that happened last week), and cheerios ground into the carpet.  The emotional and spiritual pieces are complicated too.  When confronted with a really bad choice one of our children made I began to question,

                 

                “How could they even think of doing that?”

                “I thought I did a good enough “parenting” job to guard against this.

The truth is I don’t like messes, physical, emotional or spiritual ones.  Everything is supposed to be neat and tidy – the house, the car, our children’s behavior.

But, that IS NOT reality (and our house is messy, six people live there)

I realize I try to parent in such a way that my kids won’t make messes, so they won’t make big mistakes.  I’ve even been known to clean my toddlers’ hands in the middle of a meal just to cut down on the messy end result of dinner (Oh yes, I am OCD!)  Of course there are little mistakes – things we deal with on a daily basis like bad attitudes, disobedience, fighting, screaming instead of using our words to ask for something (ahem, Caris), but not a big thing like this – a really bad choice that reveals what is truly going on in the heart of a child.  Please don’t misunderstand, we do work hard to get to the heart of the matter in all those above things, but they just seem little compared to this.  This is where parenting gets messy:  prayer, confrontation, confession, scripture and consequences.  Did I mention the prayer part?

“Where’s the balance between mercy and discipline?  Please, God give us wisdom.  Where did they even get the idea to do that anyway?”

Answer: in his heart,

Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

A wise friend told me – what a privilege for God to reveal our kids’ heart to us so that we can point them to Jesus’ grace.  A privilege, huh?  This situation is a privilege.  Yes, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a privilege.

Yes, an opportunity for God to root out the sin, to shape us into who He wants us to be - for God's grace and mercy to be poured out.  Oh yes, there will be consequences - there always are - sin reaps a harvest we don't expect.  This situation is also teaching me that I can't make my kids choose the right way.  Sometimes they have to fall on their faces in the dirt - the dirt of their sin to learn between right and wrong.  I feel like this is a reflection on me -- I'm a poor parent because my child made a bad choice.  It's not - and I take comfort in the face that God is merciful, faithful, and forgiving.  Then, that old Sunday school song popped into my head:

"He's still working on me...to make me what I ought to be.  It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.  How loving and patient He must be.  He's still working on me." 

Thankfully, He is still working on all of us - none are ever a hopeless case.  Through it all I'm learning to embrace the messy parenting.