Friday Favorites: Recalibrating for the New Year

Friday Favorites: 
Recalibrating for the New Year

Dear friends,

Two more days until the New Year!

I don't know about you, but I am exhausted from 2011.  It has been a year of very challenging transitions for my whole family.  Frankly, I don't feel much like writing anything except in my journal at this point, hence the paucity of new posts on my blogs lately.

I feel a distinct need for recalibration at this point.  I know there are areas of life where I have almost completely lost motivation and vision, where I am battling to overcome negative attitudes and habits.  It's time to renew my mind and tweak my lifestyle even more.  In some ways, I just need to find my way back home again in the sense of recapturing, rethinking, refreshing, reworking the noble dreams I once had for my family. Yes, there has been much baggage of unrealistic (and/or legalistic) expectations that I've had to shed along the way, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And for that process, it seems I need a constant stream of inspiration, whether it is from the Bible (I have been reading and reflecting on Luke -- see Reflections on the 6th of Luke), or from the encouragement of friends (which has been so priceless in recent very difficult months), or from authors and musicians.  And in this post, I'm sharing about some books, a CD, and some other blog posts to bless you, too.

Cold Tangerines

My husband, at my request, gave me a copy of Shauna Niequist's book Cold Tangerines,which, as the title suggests, has been very refreshing to my soul. Subtitled "Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Every Day Life," it is is written in a warm and conversational style, and seeps deep. I appreciate that she doesn't offer easy answers, but instead explores some of the mysteries of faith and daily life. I seriously don't know how people learn to write like that, and I confess that I am insanely jealous. Maybe someday I will figure it out.  In my dreams.  One of my adult daughters who still lives at home borrowed the book, read it, and said it's her new favorite, too. Shauna Niequist reminds me of the literary version of musician Sara Groves, whose music has been such a balm to me in the past several years. 

Invisible Empires

I hadn't even realized Sara Groves had a new CD out, but my husband saw Invisible Empires in the bookstore and gave it to me for Christmas. Perfect.  We were listening to it in the car yesterday, just before our walk twice around Lake Lily.  We are working through sobering and pivotal things, the two of us, and that requires regular time away from the kids.

 

G.K. Chesterton

I've also been reading some books on Kindle.  You don't need an actual Kindle device to download and read them from Amazon.  I read mine either on my iPod Touch or on my computer. One of my Facebook friends, Angela (aka The Thrifty Homemaker) routinely posts lists of free Kindlebooks.  Here are three I've been enjoying lately: 77 Ways to Get Your Kids to Help at Home by Judy H. Wright, The Heart of Abundance: A Simple Guide to Appreciating and Enjoying Life by Candy Paull, and Orthodoxy by British writer G.K. Chesterton, a contemporary and friend of C.S. Lewis.  "Witty" and "profound" are the two words that come to mind when I think of the writing style of Orthodoxy.  You have to think about this book, which is a Christian classic.  I particularly appreciate his kind words about those of us who think more poetically than logistically.  Chesterton reminds us to break out of our airtight little circles of rigidly "rational" thinking and stretch our brains and our hearts to a larger life. I like that.  I recommended it to my FB friend, and she added it in with today's list!

  

On My Blogs

·        The End, The Beginning, and the In Between (brief reflection on Ecclesiastes)

·        Every Body Matters (Book by Gary Thomas, Review by Virginia Knowles)

·        Christmas, A Gift of Joy (not just for the holidays)

·        Ivory and Gray (A Wedding Poem)

·        "A Strong Hope" from Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel

Inspiration in the Blogosphere

·        Simple Ways to Start Fresh in the New Year by Charlotte Seims at This Lovely Place "The new year is just around the corner and it’s a great time to get a fresh start in your life.  Whether you want to get in shape, manage your time or get a handle on your house cleaning, take advantage of the extra feeling of motivation this time of year to accomplish some easy and doable tasks." (Charlotte is a home schooling mother of 12, speaker, author,  and fitness trainer).  Also from Charlotte's web site, an article by Elvie Look: 21 Good (and Bad) Habits to Keep You Organized

·        Filling your soul with beauty, truth and goodnessby Sally Clarkson at I Take Joy "Make a plan of how you will grow in wisdom, beauty and truth this year. What will you read? When will you have a quiet time? What do you need to stop doing? Make a plan for all the ways you will pour beauty, goodness, wisdom and truth into your children this year. What books and stories will you read to them? When will you have devotionals with them? How do you need to change to reflect love and graciousness to them so that they will form their relationship habits on gentleness and generous love?"

·        When You Need a New You by Arabah Joy"And it strikes me one day, why so many of God’s people never breathe it in. Why we never let the Physician do the full work He offers us: Some of us are content to stay on the other side of the Jordan. Like the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manassah, we are happy with the land just short of the Promised Land. (Josh. 22:1-4)  We decide our symptoms aren’t that bad, the prognosis is tolerable, and there are far fewer risks involved. Who wants to spend their whole lifetime fighting to gain territory, anyway? We’ll settle for stuffed bookshelves and too-busy lives and the intake of so much caffeine that it needs its own budget….we’ll take what we can get and make the best of it."   Also by Arabah Joy: The Gift

·        Quiet Time 101by Jeannie Fulbright "During the years I taught Bible study, I met many women who had never developed the habit of a daily quiet time. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to have a quiet time, it was that they simply didn’t know exactly how. They had tried to read their Bibles, but found it didn’t gel. They tried to develop a habitual prayer life, but found their minds wandered when they were praying so that they couldn’t really get through their list of prayers. Because many adults didn’t grow up in Christian families, they have never been taught how to have a vital, thriving quiet time with God. So, if you haven’t had a daily quiet time, how do you begin?"

·        A Faith That Fits by Emily at A Deeper Story "This faith I carry was stitched with as much love as that yellow dress, and just as my Mama made a big quilt to cover their bed of all our baby clothes, maybe I can make something worthwhile yet. So I gather up the tired faith with my scissors, needle, and thread.  And daily I snip out the worn clean through spots, split open the seams, and try to find pieces that are still good. I lay the salvaged squares out in front of me and try to piece it together with the emerging faith. Maybe one day I will make something beautiful from this mess. But today it’s still in pieces."

·        Roasted Cinnamon Nuts OK, so this one isn't inspirational, but it sure is yummy.  I bought a three pound bag of almonds at Sam's Club made these as Christmas presents for my husband and my married daughters. I presented them in Rubbermaid containers with festive red lids, and they were seriously the culinary rave of the day.  My toddler grandson literally went nuts for them, and his pregnant mommy said she could just sit on the couch eating them all day.  Lightly sweetened, and just plain scrumptious…   I originally found this recipe linked from a post on Toni Anderson's Happy Housewife blog.  More food?  Check out Ann Kroeker's Food on Fridays; you can find today's post at Food on Fridays: Shrimp in Garlic Cream Sauce.

God bless you, friends!

Virginia Knowles

www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

A Strong Hope (Reflections on Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel)

“Anything—minus hope—equals nothing. Hope is the human equivalent of oxygen when it comes to a person’s ability to live effectively. Take it away, and everything else becomes irrelevant. Without hope it is impossible to live a balanced life. Far worse, without hope, people surrender too soon and die too young… Any parent who wants to raise his or her children into strong, confident and resilient adults has got to grasp the reality of children’s fundamental need to a strong hope… Kids groomed in a grace-based environment find it easier to be visionaries, to trust in a better future, and to long for a greater good…”

Welcome back to my series of reflections on the book Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel! I thought the quotes above would provide a great introduction for this chapter called “A Strong Hope.” It’s the start of the Christmas season as I write this, and hope is certainly a relevant topic at the moment. Hope is often hard to come by, even as the holiday music serenades us in the shopping mall and advertisements promise us a jolly life if we only buy their shiny stuff on sale. My own kids are working on their wish lists right now! In the midst of the holiday hoopla, despair and disillusionment can creep in and take over not only the “world out there” (with wars, human trafficking, poverty and other social maladies) but also our own homes and churches. I know. I’ve been there. It’s a black hole. And yet Jesus Christ came to bring us hope—for the peace and presence of God, for our future in eternity, and for building communities of faith with others in the here and now. I could use a good strong dose of that hope right now.

This is a really long chapter—over 30 pages long—but I’ll try to distill the essence into one blog post! Dr. Kimmel's words, as well as Scripture verses, are in italics.

“One of the first things we need to understand is the role that helplessness plays in building a strong hope into our children. Their early ability to trust us in the areas where they are helpless to meet their personal needs weighs heavily in their ability to ultimately trust God as they grow older… If he can’t trust the adults in his life when he is helpless, why should he assume that he could trust in a God he can’t see—especially if that trust in God is preached to him by the parents who failed to help him in his time of need?”  

Dr. Kimmel writes this to introduce his comments on the rigid feeding and sleeping schedules advocated by some child training authors. He doesn’t mention which ones, but the obvious frontrunners are Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo of Babywise, who have been sharply criticized by many in the medical and parenting fields, especially since this has led to dehydration and malnutrition in young babies. Infants need responsiveness from their parents, not strict clock watching. When a baby is genuinely hungry – which isn’t always on cue from the parents – he learns to trust those caring for him when they are feeding him.  That doesn’t mean that parents are slaves to their babies, but that they orchestrate a reasonable, flexible routine. When my first baby was born, I tried to stick to a four hour feeding schedule. She might be crying loudly to be fed, but I would look at my watch and say, “No, five more minutes until you can eat!” Then it was ten minutes of nursing on one side, then ten minutes on the other side, and we were done for the next four hours. If she was asleep when it was “time to eat” I would wake her up. Really! At least that’s the way we started. I eased up considerably as we went along, just because it seemed the sensible thing to do.  When her sister was born 22 months later, I entirely ditched the four hour plan and fed when it was a good time for both of us.  If she seemed hungry, I nursed her.  If we were about to go somewhere and I knew I wouldn’t be able to discretely breastfeed her, I would nurse her before we left. If she was taking a nap, I would “let the sleeping baby lie”! If it was time for bed and she was awake, I would give her a milky “nightcap” until she fell asleep, even if she had just eaten an hour before that.  And that’s the way I fed the next eight babies, too. That responsiveness also meant that I had to start the last four babies on a mostly formula diet – though still nursing on a flexible schedule -- since by my late thirties and early forties I couldn’t produce nearly enough milk no matter what I tried. If I had listened to eager moms who thought cow’s milk was poison and insisted on breast only, my babies would have seriously failed to thrive.  I needed to set aside my mommy ego and do what was best for my helpless babies.  They were developing their most basic trust in me, whether it was by breast or bottle! I have watched that first sweet baby girl grow up to be a responsive and responsible mommy to her own little guy. (Sally Clarkson has just written a blog post related to motherly responsiveness to feeding needs here: Do Unto Your Children As You Would Have Them Do Unto You, and Tulip Girl has a series on the pitfalls of various aspects of Babywise parenting.)

Feeding is a profound metaphor for our spiritual needs, too. Jesus knows we are hungry and thirsty. “I am the bread of life!” and “I am the living water!” are two of his most poignant promises to those who come to him, whether it is the woman at the well, or the hungry crowd of thousands on the hillside, or a 21st century family in the suburbs.

As parents, we need to be aware of our children’s real life needs, so we can come alongside and offer loving nourishment and help. They will certainly need leadership and encouragement in their spiritual lives. Otherwise: “They have no idea how to find the way, know the truth, or gain the life… Passivity when it comes to their spiritual life signs their death warrant in advance. Few find their way through to God on their own. They need loving parents enthusiastically leading the way.”

Then there are the practical needs in their lives. Yes, they need to start learning independence. But first they need guidance and a tactical boost. Maybe it is tutoring in a weak academic area, or help choosing a healthy breakfast, or intervention with an irritable sibling, or tips on filling out college scholarship applications, or a small loan to start a lawn mowing business. Whatever we do, we can train and equip them for success in the future.

“Fortunately, children don’t stay helpless forever, and eventually they become old enough to feed themselves, groom themselves, communicate clearly, and even stand up for themselves. Their minds develop well enough to think inductively and deductively. Our mistake is when we fail to relinquish our control over these areas once children have gotten to where they can handle them on their own.  Parents who run their children’s lives and make most of their decisions discourage them from individual thinking.  This can damage their ability to learn to lean on God. It also confuses their ultimate choice to put their hope in God and could mislead them into thinking that God likes to keep them hopeless, too.”

God does not isolate us from worldly traps that could bring us down. He wants us to become mature enough to function around them and not be influenced by them. He doesn’t want us to remain as spiritual infants, fed only on milk, though that is where we all rightly start. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14)

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)

So as parents, we must transition from protecting our children to preparing them. We give them more options, knowing that they will make some bad choices and learn from them. “Eventually they’ve got to stand on their own two feet.  God gives us their childhood (especially their teenage years) to let them practice making decisions under our roofs. Simple logic would say that if children are going to struggle and make bad choices, it’s better that they do so while they remain involved with loving parents to help them through it. When parents don’t let them practice, children often overreact to the freedom when they go to college or go out on their own. Unfortunately, those mistakes can do greater harm to them (and to others).  Grace-based parenting is shrewd about helping children grow up and develop independence before they are sent out on their own.”

We’re teaching our kids to trust in God, that there is hope for a good future, but what happens when things don’t seem to turn out all right? I have a young adult daughter, still living at home, who has faced a lot of tough circumstances this year. It seems no matter how hard her effort, something comes up to wipe out any gains. She is learning endurance through all of us, and I’ve reminded her of how much more compassionate she will be with others after struggling so much herself. As Dr. Kimmel writes, “Now, there’s one more area where God wants to use us to build their hope, and that’s when God chooses to solve their problems in ways that wouldn’t be of their own choosing… In these types of scenarios, they are hoping for a physical miracle, an intellectual epiphany, or a relational windfall to suddenly make everything right. The God we trust in doesn’t always deal with these problems in ways we expect or hope for. Sometimes He answers our pleas with answers like “No” or “Wait” or “Later.” When He does, it’s because He is working to make us better and stronger and to draw us closer to Him. He has a bigger plan that this setback fits into. Children need to have a hope in His love that enables them to trust in His character while walking down these painful corridors of their lives. For the child facing these crises, the grace that has surrounded him, the love he’s been shown, and the character of the parents who gave him that grace and love provide a natural springboard for him to rest in God’s final answer to his pleas. It helps him hope when everyone else would give up.”

I feel like I’ve already learned so much from this chapter, yet there is still so much more!  How about “A Checklist for Building Strong Hope”? Here are the bare bullet points in bold italic, which Dr. Kimmel expounds on for several pages, along with my brief comments on each one in parentheses.

1. Children develop a strong hope when they know their parents recognize their God-given abilities and liabilities and turn them into assets for their future.  (Dr. Kimmel applies the Proverbs 22:6 verse “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” as meaning we should not only train our children in God’s ways, but discover the individual way our children are created and called to be and equip them for success in that.  We also need to determine what their specific weaknesses are and help them to overcome in those areas.  They are not mini clones of us!)

2. Children develop a strong hope when their parents lead them and encourage them to live a great spiritual adventure.(One of my favorite phrases about life and parenting is “the grand adventure” so he instantly has my ears on this one.  What he’s getting at is that our goal shouldn’t necessarily be “the safe life” for our kids.  Over-sheltering leads them to be critical of others, and naïve about the dangers they will face.  Life is inherently risky.  Will they be ready?  Not to mention that Christians are called to risk their lives for the gospel anyway, whether they are foreign missionaries or not.  Yes, we should be shrewd.  We don’t throw a defenseless child to the wolves.  But we do teach them to rely on God, to discern good from evil, to make wise choices, to deal with the inevitable dangers.  Much of what we do as Christian parents is a reflection of our middle-class suburban sensibilities.  Parents in Third World countries don’t have our options, yet they can still raise spiritually savvy children who can withstand whatever cultural pressures and socioeconomic circumstances they encounter.  Speaking again of over-protective parents, Kimmel writes, “These protected environments don’t allow a system of spiritual antibodies to develop within the character of the child. This produces a generation of people who must within a spiritually sterilized environment in order to survive.  These are nice systems that produce nice kids who marry nice kids who go to nice churches and hang out with like-minded friends.   Meanwhile, the lost people in the world around them continue in their doomed condition.  In these environments, there is little spiritual adventure.  God is nice, Jesus becomes a plush toy that we cuddle, and we become irrelevant.”  I cried when I read Kimmel’s analogy of the ship that never goes past the harbor entrance.  That’s because of a simple quote my second daughter taught me when she, at age 19, traveled by herself to spend three months in the remote (and very hazardous) mountains of Bolivia: "A ship in harbour is safe, but that is NOT what ships are built for" (William Shedd).  I know I linked these in the post for last chapter, but here they are again: A Ship in Harbour is Safe..., and And They Are Strong and Bold... (Girls and the Grand Adventure) and Come With Me Here. Those who have children in public school may wish to read Going Public: Your Child Can Thrive in Public School by David and Kelli Pritchard.  I just received my copy yesterday, so I haven’t read the whole thing, but what I’ve read so far is very good and very stretching.  I am still home schooling several of my children, as I have for 20 years, but also have two in public school.

3.Children develop a strong hope when their parents help them turn their childhood into a series of positive accomplishments. Equip, equip, equip!  I often tell my kids, “I am here to help you succeed!”  But I need to follow through more with this for sure!

And in all of this, what do they need?  Our own example!  They need to see us exercising self-discipline, growing intellectually and spiritually, and taking on new challenges with gusto.   With our kids, we sometimes also need to “learn the graceful art of ‘pushing carefully’ by establishing realistic standards and then shoving them in the right direction.”  Yow, that one hits a little too close to home for me.  I tend to lean more toward being lax in making my kids work hard at school and chores, and it has come back to bite me.  Other parents might lean into pushing their kids to over achieve – which doesn’t make them better people, just more proficient in certain areas.  “They need to see their commitment to achievement as a way to glorify God as well as a way to make them more valuable to others.  Grace helps us keep achievement in its rightful place, as a means to an end.”

Kids won’t always win. They also need to learn to lose gracefully, to get past their failures, and to try again.  Parents make powerful cheerleaders when the going gets rough. And when we are discouraged in parenting, we need a little cheer of hope to keep us going, too:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7-9).

There are six more chapters in this book.  I hope to write about them soon, but for now, I’ve got some work to do on my own harvest!

You can read the complete series here:

• Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short
• The Truth Behind Grace 
• A Secure Love
• A Significant Purpose
• A Strong Hope
• A Delivery System for Grace and The Freedom to Be Different and Vulnerable
• The Freedom to Make Mistakes
• The Freedom to Be Candid

Grace to you,

Virginia Knowles

Friday Favorites #13: Identity and Difficulty

The Knowles family on October 15, 2011

Dear friends,

It’s about time for more Friday Favorites!  Yes, it’s been over two months since I’ve done this, but we’ve had a wedding to plan (Just a Few Wedding Pictures and A Country Style Wedding Reception) and I wrote several posts in my Grace Based Parenting series in the interim.  And now I’m really having to limit blogging time because our family is walking through a very challenging season of life.  Your prayers are greatly appreciated. 

However, I did want to compile this group of links that I thought would be helpful to some of you.  Most of these are in some way related to having a true sense of identity, and I can tell you, I have been thinking lately that “It is a good thing I know who I am.”

I have posted brief excerpts with each link, and I would encourage you to read the full articles for anything which piques your interest.

How To Afford What Really Matters- Living Loved by Arabah Joy “I know this voice well. How often it tells me that I need to teach my children a lesson; that a few well placed, hard words will bend them to my liking and will prevent future mishaps; that in order to get the appropriate response I want, I must listen to my emotions, lay down the law. I surely must address this and nip it in the bud. If not, my child will run wild and I’ll never be able to “control” him or her again. I simply can’t afford anything other than strong-armed parenting. Except the voice has been proven a liar. I’ve been down a parenting road or two that I don’t ever care to visit again.  This is one of them. But how to find the way out? Because it is a dark road, not well marked, and finding your way back isn’t easy. And just because I’ve learned that Shepherd’s staff trumps Egypt’s whip doesn’t mean I always know what the staff looks like…how it plays out from situation to situation. It can all be so frustratingly ambiguous. What exactly am I supposed to do? The refrain echos from the chambers of my heart: “Live Loved,” it says once again.

Jamie’s Biggest Homeschooling Mistake: Failing to Be Me by Jamie Martin at Simple Homeschooling “I  began my homeschooling career like many of you: with a whole host of stereotypes and a conveyor belt education hangover. I believed I wasn’t fully equipped to teach my children and that a system knew what they needed better than I did. Even though I dared, as many of you have, to venture out on this path–I carried my baggage with me. As a result, I wanted to homeschool the “right” way. I desperately didn’t want to fail my children or screw up their education, their socialization, their lives! So I read some really good books about homeschooling, searched for the ideal curriculum, and turned down the dial on my inner intuition. But something didn’t feel right. Me.”

What’s Happened to Satan? By Preston at A Deeper Story“The boy removed his horns from his head and offered them and his pitchfork to me, stating simply and confidently, “I don’t want to be Satan anymore.” I received them with the same look of earnest conviction that he had offered them to me. “Alright, what shall you be, then?”

Which personalities are the most acceptable?  by Sally Clarkson at I Take Joy“We live in a world that values conformity. We want to use our force, our power, our authority to make people, and our children, fit into the box. Be good. Be tame. Be moral. Don’t bring attention to yourself. Don’t contend or question what the norm.” – which leads into her son’s article…

OCD, ADHD, ADD, ODDby Nathan Clarkson at The MOB Society (for Moms of Boys) “I am different, sometimes crazy, I am more volatile than most, I am a little louder at some points and much quieter than anyone at other times, I feel things strongly, I don’t idle well, I dance and sing VERY loudly.”

Be Careful Who You Listen To by Lizzie Julin at Submission Is Not Silence“Through history, women have heard conflicting messages, enough to blur and distort the truth of who they are: their importance and significance. Fear of being controlled and fear of abuse still resonate in women. In some places slave trafficking, domestic violence and unfair workplace policies steal their self respect and excitement for life.  Every woman is significant by birth! Every woman can become strong and effective with wisdom from the Bible and persistent effort. Her courageous steps toward expressing it will work for her benefit her whole lifetime.”  Also see Debating Abigail

Two Abigails Part 1and Part 2by MatthewS at Recovering Grace  “The first Abigail is a wise and beautiful hero, an inspiration to women and men everywhere. Her quick thinking, deliberate action, and diplomatic speech saved many lives. We meet this Abigail in a delightful story told in 1 Samuel 15. Sadly, many of us raised under the Institute in Basic Life Principles and ATI’s teachings grew up hearing a misleading version of this courageous person’s story.”

I Call You Blessedby Beverly Bradley at Out on a Limb “Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” As Reb was reading, I sensed the Lord embrace me, saying, “You have never seen Me, and yet you believe.”  My heart responded, “But I falter, and I struggle everyday to remember and to believe.” His encouragement persisted.  “You have never seen Me, and yet you believe in Me.  You don’t stop believing in Me.  You fall, but you get up, go on; you believe and won’t stop.  I call you blessed.” I was amazed!  Here I was in the throes of my weakness, and Jesus called me blessed! “Seriously, Lord, You are O.K. with this…this train wreck?” “I call you blessed.” “Well then, if I know I am not wounding Your heart, and I have to struggle every day of my life, then O.K., I will fight this as long as I live, and I will believe.”“I call you blessed.” Tears of relief flooded me.  I could fight this fight as long as I knew I had His smile.

And finally, though it is not a blog post, I thought I would end this emphasis on identity with a news story: Name changers: 285 Indian girls no longer 'unwanted'
“Hundreds of Indian girls whose names mean "unwanted" in Hindi chose new names Saturday for a fresh start in life. A central Indian district held a renaming ceremony it hopes will give the girls new dignity and help fight widespread gender discrimination that gives India a skewed gender ratio, with far more boys than girls.”

 

Which in turn reminds me of the identity that God offers us in Jesus:  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." (1 Peter 2:9-10)

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles

www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

"A Significant Purpose" from Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel

“A Significant Purpose”

Thanks for continuing to read my series on Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel.  I’m really encouraged by the notes I’ve received in my inbox since I began it, including two very sweet ones from Dr. Kimmel’s Family Matters ministry staff.  I know from reading the feedback that some of you have been deeply wounded by legalism, and others admit that they have hurt their own children unwittingly with their lack of grace in parenting.  I am right there with you.  I am learning new truths about grace even after nearly a quarter century of parenting 10 children.  Sometimes I feel like I’m starting over at Kindergarten.  So let’s all pray for each other, shall we?

These brief reflections barely touch the surface of the book.  I hope you will order your own copy from either the Family Matters bookstore or from Christian Book Distributors.

If you would like to read my thoughts on the first three chapter, you can find them here: 

• Chapter 1: "Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short" 
• Chapter 2: "The Truth Behind Grace"
• Chapter 3: “A Secure Love” 

Chapter 4 of Grace Based Parenting covers the second deep need of children, “A Significant Purpose.”  It opens with a gripping story from the movie October Sky.  (I’m going to have to watch that soon!)  Homer Hickam is growing up in a West Virginia coal mining town when the news of the Soviet satellite Sputnik rocks the world.  To the townsfolk, who had been programmed for decades to “think small”, this harbinger of Russian domination brings gloom and defeat.  To Homer, hope for his own future.  “Homer Hickam had seen what the mine could do to a man”: black lung disease, ruined families, a graceless angry father who refused to see the potential for his son to doing something more.  Homer believed “that he was put on the earth for something different, something strategic.”  So he and his buddies became obsessed with learning about rocketry and eventually won a national science competition.  His father was bitterly disappointed in his quest – at first.  Fortunately, he had a change of heart that spurred his son on to getting an advanced education and joining NASA as part of the team that sent astronauts into space.

With this story, Dr. Kimmel reminds us that “There is a deep longing in the heart of every child to ‘make a difference’ … They weren’t born to be common denominators or mere faces in the crowd.  That’s why tyrannical governments get so little out of their people.  God didn’t create us to ignore our potential or abandon our dreams.  He meant for us to be free so that we could pursue our potential with abandon.  Despots, and the oppression that often accompanies them, insult God by refusing to create the environment that encourages potential to take root and grow.  Tyrannical families blunt potential, too.  So do preoccupied families and indifferent families and lazy families.  Our children deserve better.  God has left us as stewards of our children’s gifts and skills.  Just as God has given us a chance to send our children into the future with a secure love, He has also given us the opportunity to send our children into the future with a significant purpose.’”

Another old movie that Dr. Kimmel mentions is Mr. Holland’s Opus, the story of a man who had great dreams of becoming a composer, but takes a job as a high school band director to pay the bills.  He fails to realize what an impact he has on his students as he launches them into their own fulfilled potentials – until the dramatic end of the film when “what goes around comes around”!

If our children don’t have a significant purpose, they might end up with an underdeveloped purposed, growing old without any sense of making a difference or measuring up to expectations.  Or they might have a revengeful purpose, trying to achieve their dreams as a means of getting back at parents who told them they couldn’t.  Or they might have a wasted purpose, never coming close to tapping their own potential or finding their niche.

That’s not what I want for my kids.  I want to help them find their purpose at several levels that Dr. Kimmel outlines: 

First, they must find a general purposeof revering God, gaining wisdom, working hard, and serving others.  This is foundational character for all people, young and old.  Some of us are still playing catch-up in these areas, but we need to develop these qualities in our own lives, so it will be natural to pass them on to our children.  Next, we help them discover a specific purpose consistent with their skills and abilities.  That doesn’t mean that they focus only on one or two key talents.  They need to be well-rounded with many abilities while honing their special skills.  Children also need a relational purpose  by learning “how to love, how to be forthright, how to be transparent with close friends, how to confront, and how to forgive.”  Finally, the ultimate relationship we can have is with God, so we cannot neglect spiritual purpose.  (See Shiela Catanzarite’s article “Teaching Our Children to Walk with God.”) This is an often neglected priority!    Do they know the deep love of God, and does it make a difference to them?  Do they realize that they can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world?  Are they faithful to use the gifts that God has entrusted to them?

So how do we build this sense of purpose in our children?

Children feel significant when they are regularly affirmed.  A sweet grandmother recently told me how important it is for children to feel esteemed, and it’s true.  I think many Christian parents, wanting to teach their children humility, pass on what I call “the worm mentality.”  They hammer home the point that we are despicable sinners incapable of anything good, and forget the part about being wondrous creations of a loving Father, equipped for worthy deeds.  We can spend so much time trying to fine-tune them through constant correction that we neglect to empower them with sincere and significant encouragement.  I’m not talking about flattery or empty compliments.  They see through that, and it doesn’t prepare them well for the real world where praise is based on actual effort and achievement. “Affirmation catches your children doing something right.  It notices when they do things you know don’t come easy to them.  It applauds them when they fix a wrong or dig themselves out of a hole they’ve made (like bringing up a poor grade).  It thanks them for living out their moral principles and being willing to stand alone for their convictions.”  Yet we so often nullify encouragement with criticism, especially in the challenging teen years.

Children feel significant when they know they have our attention.  Jesus noticed kids – and encouraged his followers to welcome them.  As parents, “we need to have a working knowledge of our children’s likes and dislikes, their friends and their detractors, and the big things and little things that matter most in their lives.”

Children feel significant when they are gracefully admonished.  Yes, we need rules, moral guidelines, and consequences as we raise children.  And yes, our children will still succumb to sin in many ways in the process of learning to appropriately guard their hearts.  When they do sin, they need our gracious response instead of our harsh or fearful reaction.  The result of careful, firm, loving discipline is found in Hebrews 12:11 – “yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

Dr. Kimmel closes this chapter by reminding parents: “It’s almost mystifying but it’s true.  We matter more to our kids than we realize.  They were born with a need to make a difference.  For good or for ill, we play the biggest role in determining what kind of difference they will ultimately make.”

~*~*~

I have shared with you some of the thoughts from the book, and now, as I did for the last chapter, I’d like to extend that with some reflections of my own.

Over the past few years, one of my themes for research and writing has been abuse of authority in churches and homes, especially as related to the home schooling movement.  Tragically, there is no shortage of blogs written by young people who have been deeply hurt by the control and legalism they were raised with.  One of the best is by a group of people who had been raised in Bill Gothard’s ATI and IBLP programs.  They write at www.recoveringgrace.org, which is an excellent resource.  (Other blogs are written by mothers like Karen Campbell at www.thatmom.comwho are waking up to the damage they have caused in their own homes and want to spare other moms from hitting the same potholes.) Some of the young people have broken ties with their families.  Others have left the Christian faith entirely.  My counselor, whose own five children were home schooled when they were younger, tells me that based on his observations, more young people rebel against faith and family because of legalism than from secular influences.  That is one reason that I am starting to speak out more boldly as an insider who has “been there, done that and lived to tell the story.”  You can read many of my thoughts on this topic at one of my other blogs, www.watchtheshepherd.blogspot.com.

It also reminds me of the lyrics of “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay.  First verse:  

I used to rule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

Now in the morning I sleep alone

Sweep the streets I used to own

Pride goes before a fall.  Despots will meet their due, whether in government or parenting.  And true leaders empower those who are in their care.  They equip them to succeed rather than intimidate them with fear just to remain in control.  This also reminds me of one of my favorite children’s picture books, The Rebellious Alphabet by Chilean exile Jorge Diaz.  The tyrannical but illiterate Little General meets his match in book-and-liberty-loving Placido and his unusually talented canaries.

It has actually been really fun to see my older children blossom, to launch them into amazing adventures where fear could have prevented us from sending them.  You might like to read some posts about mission trips my daughters Mary, Julia, Rachel and Joanna took as teens and young adults: 

• And They Are Strong and Bold... (Girls and the Grand Adventure)
• A Ship in Harbour is Safe...
• To Bolivia with Love (poem)
• A is for Angela
• B is for Bolivia
• Come With Me Here
• Abbondanza de Vita
• To Italy with Love

As I type these words, I am sitting in an auditorium waiting for a Broadway Night production at my fifth daughter’s high school.  Lydia is singing “A New Life” from the musical Jekyll and Hyde.  As I’ve been listening to her rehearse the lyrics, I’ve been struck with how well they mesh with the theme of much of this Grace Based Parenting book: the need for love, purpose, hope.  (Later note: It was a terrific performance – but unfortunately her accompaniment track stopped short and after several more lines of beautifully sung fluster, she did too.  I am so proud of how she handled this disappointment – with good humor!  I’ll try to post video later, but here is a verse from the lyrics that speaks about purpose: 

A new start -

That's the thing I need, 

To give me new heart -

Half a chance in life 

To find a new part, 

Just a simple role  

That I can play.

There is much more I could write about raising kids with purpose, but I’ll have to pass right now because this post is getting long and my time is getting short!  But you are more than welcome to browse around on my blogs, www.VirginiaKnowles.blogspot.com, www.comewearymoms.blogspot.com, www.startwellhomeschool.blogspot.com, www.continuewellhomeschool.blogspot.com,  www.finishwellhomeschool.blogspot.comand www.watchtheshepherd.blogspot.com.

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles

www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com