I am the perfect parent. Well, that sounds so presumptuous, doesn’t it? It’s hard for me to swallow too. But it’s true. Maybe it would help if I told you how I define perfect. The word perfect found in the book of Philippians also translates complete and mature.
You see my identity is not based on my behavior but in my personhood as a child of God. God has made me complete. God has made me mature. God has made me perfect. Whether I choose to behave like who I am or not doesn’t change the truth about me.
God has also made me a parent. He has made me perfect and a parent. He has picked specific kids for me to parent. For these kids, I am the perfect parent. Most of the time, I do not FEEL like the perfect parent for these kids. Most the time, I feel like I should be saving money for their weddings, college education, and all the counseling they will need because of how much I am screwing them up.
BUT the truth is despite how I feel and even how I act at times, God has made me perfect in Him.
Let’s break this down…
In the book of Philippians, Paul has this awkward little section where he says, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:12) then he continues… Let us, therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.” (Phil. 3:15)
Huh? He calls us imperfect and perfect within a few statements! Here is his point: live like who you are: parent out of our perfectness. If our attitudes/ feelings/ actions don’t line up with this truth God will reveal that.
Here is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately… so how do I parent perfectly? I know lots of “parenting gurus”, I have
heard lots of great advice…but what do I want to live from … “what would ______ do?” or even “what would Jesus do”. NO! I want to parent from “Jesus, what would you have me do?”.
Jesus is Love. Jesus lives inside me and He has made me perfect. And you know what? If you have chosen Jesus as your Lord and Savior, He lives inside of you. He has made you perfect.
You are the perfect parent for your child. It’s not based on how you feel, or how you act. If God has entrusted a child to you, He has decided you are the perfect person for that child. If you are a parent and God lives inside you. You are a perfect parent. Now, let’s enjoy Him and enjoy them.
Chaos, calm, or hiding —
Emotions. There, I’ve said the E word. We can’t live without them, and many times we don’t know how to live with them. As parents, when we don’t know—we can’t help our children.
I wrote these words on Facebook recently; it was one of my most shared posts—ever.
“Relationships that stay with us in our unpleasant emotions…and help us return to joy after we’ve processed all they offer…are
relationships that help us grow up.”
So many people commented on the post with something like, “Sometimes, this is so hard…”
It is. And when we struggle as parents, it is a gift from God—if we see the struggle as an invitation to model giving permission for others to speak into our lives and ask for help. If we demonstrate humility in safe relationships, our children can grow up trusting this mature way of relating, too.
We’ll get to have many conversations with our children about emotions during our season of parenthood. This blog post may help you have one of those conversations. Share this post with your family over dinner one night. Brave love starts the hard conversations and offers protection from shame.
Butterflies in your stomach –
There are few events quite like the first day of school. For weeks, you know it’s coming. You feel all the feels, and watch as your friends and family experience all the drama and delight that happens before the big day finally arrives.
The emotions that wash over you before the start of school can be the refreshing kind—like excitement, confidence, and eager anticipation. Or they can be the “I hope I just survive” kind —like dread, doubt, worry, and fear.
Perhaps “butterflies in your stomach” is a good description of this weird combination of all these emotions.
This is a true story about butterflies: They are fun to watch and beautiful to see—and they make poor line leaders. I’d never hand one of these fanciful, winged creatures the keys to my car! Butterflies go in circles and change directions without any warning. Their flight patterns look more like tangled yarn than purposeful pathways.
Butterflies are poor line leaders because they are not created to be line leaders. We can get confused if we follow them. Even if we don’t get lost, we will certainly make slow progress getting from where we are to where we are going—and we will definitely get very tired!
Emotions –
This is a true story about emotions: They are important. Emotions make life rich and powerfully real. They add value and depth to all of life’s experiences.
And emotions, like butterflies, make poor line leaders. Emotions are not created to be trustworthy taxi drivers for our travels through each day. They’re more often like hijackers than dependable guides.
Emotions are great passengers in the grand adventures of life—including the first day of school. Like your friends, you can greet them, name them, acknowledge them, wrestle with them, experience them fully—and then drop them off, until you meet them again to share a different experience.
Recognizing emotions as good passengers and bad drivers can be helpful as you navigate the beginning of a new school year. If you let emotions rule your life, they’ll tell you untrue stories —about yourself, about God, and about school.
Untrue stories –
When you make a good grade, you’re going to feel smart. When you don’t get picked for the team at recess—or if your friends ignore you, you may feel like you don’t belong. If the teacher tells you to move your clip or change your color—or if you make a bad grade, you can feel like a loser. If the teacher chooses you to be the line leader, you can feel like a winner!
Every feeling I just read to you could happen in just one day—even on the first day of school!
In less than a few hours, you may feel like a winner and a loser. You may feel smart and unworthy. The stories your emotions tell you can change in just a few seconds—as quickly as when your teacher says, “Put away the book you’re reading and get out your Math.”
The truth is, your identity never changes, even though your emotions often do. Because you have trusted the work of Jesus on the cross, you have an unchangeable identity. No matter how you feel about reading or math or being chosen or getting ignored, you are Christ in you— even on your very worst day. You always belong to God. That’s good news. And there’s more!
God’s identity never changes either. God is always love, and He is always loving you—when you feel worthy of His love, and when you don’t. God’s love is what heals your hurts and what gives you the strength to do with Him what you could never do on your own.
A true story about God and school –
God’s not grading your papers. He cares very much that you listen and work and learn; He knows that getting things right will help you, and getting things wrong will keep you confused about the way the world works. He’s more concerned about you missing out than messing up.
God doesn’t give you a bad grade when you mess up. Instead, He puts His arm around you— and offers to help. God’s hug sometimes gets delivered to you from mom or dad. You can experience His love when you let us help you with your struggles.
God doesn’t tell you to move your clip or change your color when you misbehave. God never punishes you when you struggle. Instead, God recognizes when you’ve let your emotions drive your decisions. He knows when you’ve let anger convince you to cut in line, or when you’ve let disappointment distract you from following directions.
God tells you the truth—about who He is, about who you are, and about school. He knows that when you trust Him, you’ll begin to let the truth of your identity sit in the driver’s seat of your decisions—instead of giving your emotions the keys to your behavior.
Your God-given identity will always tell you what is true, no matter what you feel. Values and convictions will grow out of your true identity—like branches grow out of the trunk of a tree. Values and convictions are the ideas you’ll grow up to believe are important in your relationships, and true about your character.
Humility –
So, welcome to a new school year, my daughter; my son. We’re going to take this adventure together. And I need your help, too.
Sometimes I let my emotions sit in the driver’s seat of my day. I let anger tell me what to say; I let frustration tell me how loud to say it. Some days I let feelings of being afraid to convince me to make choices I later wish I hadn’t made.
You have permission to respectfully remind me that emotions are more like hijackers than good line leaders. Here’s what you can lovingly say, “Mom/Dad—did you just hand your keys to a butterfly?”
This school year, can I remind you, too?
I love you, my son. I love you, my daughter.
I am so honored that you are mine.
Together, there is great hope.
For a week, the shoe was missing. I had asked my daughter where it was. She said she didn’t know and I moved on. No big deal. I can replace the shoe. She is my more responsible daughter, not like her to lose or misplace something, it’s fine.
Then a week later, it turns up in her dance bag. Yay! “Wonder how it got in there”, I say and my daughter burst into tears.
Let’s back up… a month before this her sister had lost a tennis shoe. And I may have overreacted… ok I did overreact but this daughter is careless with her things. She throws things, leaves things places. It drives me crazy! So I yelled and made her feel guilty when her tennis shoe went missing. In the moment, I felt fine about my response. She needed to feel guilty, she needed to be more responsible. And my loud and reactive response was going to get her to behave the way I wanted (sense the sarcasm).
So now here we are a month later and my other daughter is in tears. She knew her friend had been playing with her shoe as they got ready for dance but wasn’t sure where it had ended up and didn’t want me to be upset with her. So she didn’t tell me. She had been feeling bad about it all week.
We had a great conversation. We talked about why it is important to always tell the truth and that we don’t keep secrets from each other. We talked about why we feel that way when we don’t tell the truth. And I apologized for the way I had responded a month ago to her sister. (Side note: I did go apologize to that daughter too.)
This was a big moment for my daughters and me. They needed to know they can trust me. They can trust that I love them even when they mess up. Even when they don’t tell the truth. Even if they had purposefully thrown their shoes away. They need to know that my love is not based on behavior. THE RELATIONSHIP IS MORE IMPORTANT. Because when the big mess ups come in life they need to know I can be trusted to help through the mess.
And I need to choose differently next time. I WANT to choose differently next time. I want to respond and not react. I want to earn their trust and respect.
Recently someone said to me, “How beautiful would it be if when our kids messed up, they rushed into our arms to help them. They could share their failures knowing we love them so much we want nothing more than to help them work through them.”
In other words to trust me more than they fear the consequences. Please hear me, I am not saying there shouldn’t be consequences. Maybe I won’t buy a new pair shoes right away or they have to help pay for them. Or maybe I will buy them a new pair that moment because the relationship is more important than the lost shoes! MY heart is always for them and my response to them needs to reflect my heart.
So…I need to take a chill pill. I need to let God, who is peace and love, share His LIFE through me.
My kids are going to make mistakes (a lot of mistakes) and my response to them matters. Big and small mistakes, on purpose or accidents, how I respond matters.
Good news! I have Jesus living inside me! So I have all the patience, all the discernment, all the love living inside me. May I live out of this truth. And may you too!
Responding not reacting is one of those tips that applies at all stages of parenting.
I had a chance to practice responding this past week. My oldest daughter is adopted. She knows she is adopted. We talk about it openly and often. We talk about the beauty of it and how much we wanted her, and God had always planned/known she would be a Soule’. She asks questions sometimes and we answer whatever she asks. We have even begun to have conversations about her birth family. However, this week, I was not prepared to have any adoption conversation (which is usually the way it is when the topic comes up).
I picked up two of my nieces to go to the park. They are slightly older than my oldest. They jumped in the car and one said, “Aunt Emily, does Ella know she is“ and she stopped. The other niece said, “yes, she knows.” The first niece continued, “okay great! Ella lets play a game where we adopt a cat. You know like you are adopted…” I didn’t know what was to follow. My mind quickly begins to race… “Do I shut this conversation/game down? I want to protect my baby! What if they say something that hurts her…wait, this is one of those moments! Respond, don’t react, Emily” So what did I do, I hit a curb – hard! Quite dramatically the conversation quickly changed to the importance of seat belts. This was not an intentional hitting of the curb but it sure did “save me” in the moment. This adoption game/conversation really was not a big deal. It was so sweet and innocent but how I reacted/responded to it mattered.
Hitting the curb was an outward demonstration of what was happening on the inside. There are lots of times when our kids will come to us with something or just be talking within earshot of us and our response/reaction matters deeply. At all ages, our kids need to know they can say anything to us, that they can talk to their friends in front of us, and our love for them doesn’t change. We can handle the tough, awkward conversations!
On the inside we may be “hitting the curb with our car” but it is okay. We can handle the conversation because of Christ in us. If we chose to respond quickly, sarcastically, loudly, dramatically, etc., it may affect the next time our child needs to talk to us.
God the Father gives us a beautiful picture of responding and not reacting. We don’t catch Him by surprise; He only wants the best for us and is willing to wait patiently and to continue to teach us as long as it takes for us to “get it”. When we respond gently, calmly, in love in the little things, our kids will trust us in the big things. Its okay to take a moment before you respond. I usually need a few seconds (or hours) and a quick prayer like “Jesus, help the words that come out of my mouth to be you!”
I’m praying for you as you parent in the awkward, bad timing, tough conversations and in the normal mundane everyday conversations. May we be parents that respond, not react.
It was 9 am and the three year old and I were already locked in a battle of wills that shook the walls. Standing in the living room, arms full of baby dolls to the point that I could barely see her face, she stood her ground on bringing every single one with us to the gym. You can bring two, okay? Two babydolls. No more. No! I bring everybody. We’d been at it for 5 minutes, and I was over it. Luckily she couldn’t hold all 10 babies and walk, so she resigned, but not without crying and whining the entire walk to the car. Just get to the gym, I told myself. You’ll have an hour break from this crazy person, a chance to reset. She fought me the entire process of getting in her carseat, and when I got in the front seat, began screaming. Not about anything in particular, just screaming. At this point I should mention that I also have an eight month old, who is understandably not crazy about lots of yelling – so she’s upset now too.
I can’t think straight, so I get out of the car and close the door. It may sound a little inhumane, to leave the two of them crying in the vehicle, but it was that or start turning into the HulkMom. I walk a little down the driveway and just stop; that blank, glazed over look you see other moms wearing in Target while their kid throws stuff out of the buggy. I just start talking.
God, I’m so tired. I can’t remember the last time I had a break. Between these two wildlings in the car and trying to be a good wife and run a business and chase my own dreams and not let the house fall to pieces, I’m so tired. I’m not sure I can do it anymore. I’m fighting back tears at this point, allowing myself to drown in it all for a second
You can’t. It drifts through my mind like a falling leaf, and for a second I’m just downright offended. Um, I absolutely can. I absolutely can do it all, thank you very much. After a few moments my pride takes a chill pill, and it starts to dawn on me that I cannot, in fact, do all of these things. Not the way I’m trying to do them right now, at least. You see, I’ve forgotten to rest. Something that even God did. All of the crazy piles up in front of me and instead of resting in who I am in Christ, and what matters because of His truth, I set out to try to climb the mountain of my own sheer will power. And I end up here. Exhausted and frustrated and this close to losing my ever loving mind. Because I’m trying to do it myself. I will fail every single time this way. Every single time. Until I start letting the Lord lead me beside still waters as I raise two babies and chase my dreams, I will end up at the end of my driveway in tears over the crazy.
So I’m asking you to put it down. Whatever your banner of “I can do this on my own” looks like, will you just lay it down for me? You may not even realize you’re carrying this load, I so often forget that I don’t have to try to do all of this alone. And then all the sudden it hits me that I am simply not capable of keeping all the balls in the air at the same time without the loving, wonderful help of our sweet Savior. So take a deep breath, even if the house is being torn down around you as we speak. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and rest in Him and His truth. Let His goodness and peace rush in, because they’re right there – waiting. He is good, and He has good things for you. He wants to shoulder the things you’ve been carrying. Let Him be in it with you today.
“Mission minded kids.” Have you ever heard that phrase? My hope for our kids is that they will be “Christ-minded kids.” That their minds will be renewed as they grow and learn to know who and Whose they are. In that renewing that they will live out of the truth of who they are. They will believe and know that our true heart’s desire, as Christians, is to want what God wants. In this knowing, they will act out of that.
As parents, we have the privilege to teach these things to our kids.
In the process of reminding them who they are and Whose they are, we also get to share with them the truths we know about what matters to God and to live out the fulfilling of these desires in front of them.
God has clearly spelled out a few things that are near and dear to His heart and has given us instruction on what to do. God desires no man should perish (2 Pt. 3:9). He asks His people to care for widows and orphans (James 1:27) and to take care of the poor (Prov. 22:9). This is just to name a few.
As parents, one of the ways we get to teach our kids about God’s heart for these people is to partner in mission work. To introduce our kids to the needs of the world and allow their hearts to break for what breaks God’s heart. Then to do something! Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Compassion is feeling sorry and then doing something about it.
Ask your kids, at whatever age they are, these questions to get the conversation started
- If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
- If you could make life better for someone how would you do it?
- Share with your child the verses above. Ask them if they know anyone who is not a Christian, or do they know any widows or orphans, or people who have less earthly possessions than they do? Is there something your family can do for these people to share the love of Christ with them?
Who we are
We desire to walk alongside your family, to be a voice of encouragement and offer practical applications.
Whether you are a mother, father, step-parent, single parent, grand(parent), co-parent, foster parent, we hope you will find a sweet spot here.
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