The Place of Endurance

I sent an email to Blane recently that said something along the lines of, “This season of life with small kids is hard.  I am responsible for teaching them everything they need to know.  It is filled with training, discipline, and often times, it seems that is what fills our schedule the most.  It’s hard, I don’t like it.”

Mothering has been the single hardest ongoing form of sanctification in my life.  The Lord uses something different for each of us, and I’m seeing that truly, 1 Timothy 2:15 is for me:

“Yet she will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”

Going into it, I was (and still am) so thankful for the godly examples put into mine and Blane’s lives to both teach and help us have a realistic perspective of what parenting would be like.  We were able to develop a theology on parenting, if you will.  We studied Proverbs, sought the Scripture about God’s perspective on children, their role in a family, etc.  We asked lots of questions, sought to be around families with children.

But I still had selfish motives for desiring children.

So now, three and a half years into it, any sugar-coated picture I had of being a mother has long been licked away.  And I’m at the bare bones level of standing on the theology we began this family with.  That and regularly crying out to Jesus for help—not just to get through this but to change my heart so that I don’t just survive, but thrive as a mama.  Honestly, I’m still at the survival level.

See, everything in me wants things to be my way.  I see this reality clearer each day and I see how it competes against the very things I’m trying to accomplish with my children.

Even before my kids were born, my thinking has always been with my eyes toward seeing them gain maturity.  That’s what I’m working toward—to see them develop and mature in stature before men and, infinitely more importantly, before God.  And more recently, my focus has become even more narrow: I want to lead them into the presence of Jesus.  It helps me narrow in on the important things to be doing now that will get us to the end goal.

The only problem is that the now demands all of me—it demands I lay down my life.  Emotionally, intellectually, physically, spiritually—I am sucked dry as I seek to mother these kids.  And I’ve wrestled with this—with being angry about it at times.  Why do I always have to hear complaining or arguing or tantrums? I want to snap when I hear another unkind word or act done toward siblings.  I want to lash out when a complaint is offered (for the thousandth time) at dinner placed before a child.

So the reason parenting has been so stinkin’ hard for me is twofold:  it is my life that is required of me in order to train, correct, teach, love my children.  My self-willed life is also required of me in order to be trained, taught, corrected, loved by my Father in heaven.  Parenting is a means He’s using to accomplish those things.

But I see in Scripture a few things that give me hope, which I’m sure will each eventually turn into blog posts of their own.

In Hebrews 4 Jesus is described as a high priest who can sympathize with my weaknesses and who was tempted in every way.  So I can cry out to Him, knowing that He can relate.

I’ve been amazed to see how Jesus’ disciples couldn’t follow simple instructions, wouldn’t believe things He told them about Himself.  I see my kids and myself in them.  But Jesus didn’t flip out on them.  Sure, he called them out, but then He kept on trekking with them.  Kept on showing them more of Himself.  He didn’t stay mad at them or lose His patience.

Jesus often told people their sin and then called them to Him, offering life and rest.

Jesus was dependent upon His Father.  He got alone and prayed.  He did not do anything without His Father’s leading.

Serving His Father in heaven and people was painful.  The events leading up to and the laying down of His life stripped Him of anything He would have had opportunity to boast in.  This process was more painful than what I will experience, but He knows the pain that comes with what He leads me through.

If the goal of my parenting is ultimately to lead my children into the presence of Jesus, I am learning the only way to do it is on my knees.  I can’t do it by myself.  I often want to quit.  But I’m learning that this life with Jesus, kids or not, is all about endurance.  And I know something about that—it’s the middle stretch that’s the hardest.  The anticipatory start has passed and I’m not at the point of sprinting because I know I’m almost to the end.

And if God’s goal for my parenting is to lead me into the presence of Jesus, I am learning the only way to do it is on my knees.  The presence of Jesus is the place of endurance.  I can’t just tough it out like in a race.  I have to get down and cry out to Jesus for help (I’m not speaking hypothetically, I’m saying this is what I do).  And I have to realize that it’s not bad that I’m in tears on the floor before Jesus, but it’s the very best place to be—and to be there every day, several times a day until my children are out from under my wings is a very good thing.  That there is no shame there.  It’s the only way I will get to the end to finish well.  Didn’t Paul say that in our weakness Christ’s strength is able to be made manifest?

Of the many things I’ve come to realize over the past year, it’s that I need to remain in a constant state of worship and adoration of Jesus.  I need His presence all the time.  It’s the only way to keep my heart from growing cold and frail.  When I do, I am aware.  I see my sin more readily and can deal with it more quickly.  I am strengthened because my eyes are no longer on myself, but on the author and finisher of my faith.  When I am there, I can seek to lead my children there.

So apart from being on my face in tears (seriously, I hope He does have a bottle of my tears), I worship in song and dance.  I keep the prayer room stream on almost all the time, because it helps me stay focused.  I can pray, adore Him, encourage my children to worship.  I’m lost in it.  I am undone.  No longer do the little things matter.  Everything is put into perspective here.  It’s almost like I can escape reality, but really, it’s here that it all collides.  Because this is reality: my life is worship.

And I don’t want it to be me that I’m worshiping.  But that is what happens when I slip away from worship, adoration, and prayer.  Thoughts creep in, self gets magnified.

When I keep my gaze on Jesus, I see this holy task of mothering for what it is.  And I enjoy it more—not because it gets easier, but because it’s worship.  And because it’s here that He wants to meet me.

(You Tube video for song is not working–below is a link)