Saturday I found my son hiding partially under his bed, busily engaged in "something". It turns out he was outfitting one of his impossibly old action figures with a new superhero look. He was using permanent marker to color the plastic. Not a bad thing really, except that all the carpet in our town home is white. When I asked him why he was hiding he said he was sure I would not let him do this if he asked. Actually, I’m not all that concerned with the impossibly old action figure. Thanks to my son’s abundant creativity that little guy has been every hero imaginable (and it saves me from buying every hero imaginable!) I explained as much to my son and then addressed the more alarming issue-the hiding.
We’ve always told both our children, anything you have to hide you probably shouldn’t be doing. I was sad that he didn’t just come to me.
"Am I really that strict, mean, unreasonable?"
" No", he says.
"So why didn’t you come to me?"
He tells me all the time I’m the “best Mom in the world”. I know it’s not true, but isn’t it nice to hear? I usually respond with “I’m glad you think so because I really do try.” So I asked him,” if I’m the best Mom in the world, why didn’t you just come to me? You say that, but you didn’t come to me.” (Truly a teaching moment-all parenting skills fully operational.) But much more was going on than that. I heard my own words echoing in my head. How often could God say those very same words to me?
"You say I’m mighty and holy and wonderful, but did you come to Me?"
I was in one of those parent - parenting - being parented moments. No matter how old I am, no matter how old my children are, I will be a parent and a child simultaneously. Very often it’s in the moments of parenting my kids that God reminds me of something within myself that needs to be dealt with. So as I strive to be a faithful, loving parent I’m thankful I have a faithful, loving, perfect Father.
No comments:
Post a Comment