I'm at a loss right now as to how to parent. Gidster is going on 2 hours of crying now because he doesn't want to go to sleep by himself. Over the Christmas vacation, he had something like 10 straight days of being in the same room at night with us, now I guess he wants that again. So for the last 2 hours it's been, "Mommy, mommy, mommy! Daddy, daddy, daddy!" He had stopped while I started writing this, but I think my wife just tried to go cover him up and he wasn't really asleep yet, and so he's started up again. Did I mention that it is 3:40 in the morning?
It's such a dilemma. We've got no shower right now, so I've got to be up at 5:00 in order to have time to go to the school and shower. So right now I'm looking at about 3 hours total of sleep. Well, that is if I can go to sleep with him wailing, which I haven't accomplished in the past 2 hours.
But anyways, the dilemma is that Gideon is scared that we won't come and get him, and he simply wants to be with us. So he will cry unless we are with him. So, if we leave him, it confirms his fear that we aren't coming back for him and he continues to cry. However, if we go and get him it reinforces his tactic of crying to get us to come to him in the middle of the night. And then he learns to do it not just tonight but tomorrow night, and the next night, and the next night, until we finally stop it. So we're just trying to stop it now.
It's a painful experience Lord. I have to wonder how many of these painful experiences in teaching Your people lessons and helping them mature You go through on an every day basis. This is the problem of pain. It sucks, but it teaches.
I'm coming to You now, because I'm going to need some sleep when Gideon is done crying. And I probably won't be able to get up the extra bit early that I normally do in order to ensure our morning time together. So I wanted to make sure not to miss our time alone completely. So instead of 5:00 AM, here I am at 3:45 AM. Not sure how this is going to play out later in school, but I'm hoping that I can keep my eyes open!
Thank You, for Gideon is quiet right now. I pray that You can help us parent him through the 2's. I didn't expect this age to be quite as hard as it has been the past several weeks, and we're trying so hard to make sure we raise a God-honoring child. It's scary to think that your child might be able to walk away from something that is so important. I think this is another amazing thing about You and Your creation of man. You have created us with the ability and capacity to reject You and all that is important. How can You be so brave? If I could have a guarantee that Gideon would serve You, I would take it in a heartbeat. I'm really not interested in freedom, just that Gideon does what is right. But I don't even have that choice. Gideon will be free, and we have to raise him with the ability to deal with that freedom.
It's certainly interesting to look at You through the lens of my parenting experience this morning. Father, guide me to some Scriptures today that bring this up again. I would love to think about this more. Right now I'm losing the ability to stay awake...
Please, 2 hour school delay...
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Friday, November 14, 2008
Negative
I was thinking the yesterday about my attitude. KP came to give the middle school chapel, which was about thankfulness. She did a great job talking about choosing to be thankful in all things. I don't choose thankfulness very often, and even when I do it rarely comes naturally. Even Monday when I wrote to You here it was a struggle to stay on thankful terms.
I thought about it and despite my whole life being what I would call an optimist, somewhere in the course of the last several years I have begun to develop a negative attitude toward a lot of things in life. Call it realism, that's probably where I've been filing it, but really I can lack hope. I'm sure that it comes from experience: Every day I tell students to enter the classroom and sit down in there chairs and be ready for class, every day somebody doesn't do it. Every day I want to see my tennis players working hard and being self-motivated to come out and play tennis, every day somebody doesn't do it. And with Exodus, I'm not even sure what is going on there. That has been the biggest roller coaster I've ever been involved with.
But I want to be known as a joyful person, someone who keeps their cool and keeps their smile. Give me that strength to overcome the reality of suffering with the reality of hope. Let me recognize the beauty of transformation that You have put all around me. I choose to not be bogged down by the sameness and the effort, but be inspired by the moments where someone "gets it."
Today is a day where I want to leave negative behind and live by the Spirit. Let the fruit of joy be evident today!
I thought about it and despite my whole life being what I would call an optimist, somewhere in the course of the last several years I have begun to develop a negative attitude toward a lot of things in life. Call it realism, that's probably where I've been filing it, but really I can lack hope. I'm sure that it comes from experience: Every day I tell students to enter the classroom and sit down in there chairs and be ready for class, every day somebody doesn't do it. Every day I want to see my tennis players working hard and being self-motivated to come out and play tennis, every day somebody doesn't do it. And with Exodus, I'm not even sure what is going on there. That has been the biggest roller coaster I've ever been involved with.
But I want to be known as a joyful person, someone who keeps their cool and keeps their smile. Give me that strength to overcome the reality of suffering with the reality of hope. Let me recognize the beauty of transformation that You have put all around me. I choose to not be bogged down by the sameness and the effort, but be inspired by the moments where someone "gets it."
Today is a day where I want to leave negative behind and live by the Spirit. Let the fruit of joy be evident today!
Friday, March 30, 2007
A Suffering Freedom
Texts:
- Psalms 37-40
- Matthew 20-21
- Ezra 1-3
I think that control has been getting away from me during the last several days. That's a hard thing to recognize at times. It's a little disappointing as well, because that is what I spent much of my fast focusing on in prayer and such. But Lord, help me continually realize that this is not one of those character traits that you develop and then have forever. As every character trait, it is one that must be lived. So, help me remember the lessons of the fast and live in self-control.
As Exodus Community, especially in teaching meetings, we've been throwing four major points to organize ourselves around. They are in order:
1. Deliverance
2. Covenant Community
3. Knowledge of the Lord
4. Land
Now obviously, these are not entirely obvious on the face of things how they play out into our lives. But we are under a sincere belief that these four points sum up much of what God is doing in the world. So of course they've been rolling around in my head for a long, long amounts of time. So, today as I'm reading I'm reminded and intrigued by a specific thought that I've had about deliverance, the first point that helps set the rest in perspective.
As You, Jesus walk into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, everybody was crying out to You to deliver them, and to deliver them with power. You calmly made Your way through the crowds to the place of religious deliverance, the temple, and turned it upside down. In one week You went from hero to hated villain of the city. How?
Because, it seems to me, that You needed to bring about the deliverance that God is paradoxically working in. The deliverance of weakness. Deliverance of the weak by the humble and the meek. By the ones who, just like You did, are willing to point others upward instead of to themselves or to their congregations.
You deliver people. You deliver them in any way You choose. But it seems to me that one of Your favorite mediums is weakness. The Israelites are delivered by wandering through the desert for forty years, You specifically do not take them out in a show of their power, nor do You deliver them by leading them immediately into mighty battles. Instead, it is a weak wandering freedom.
Elijah, in one of the more uplifting deliverances, slays 400 prophets of Bail after a confrontation and test against them in front of all the people. But Elijah's deliverance? He is chased into the desert for fear of losing his life. Indeed, great things happened, and a people were led into freedom from a false god, but the one who bought that freedom suffered.
Even Moses, the leader of the great Exodus, suffers as a provider of deliverance. He suffers his own people indeed, but in 2nd greatest slap in the face in all of Scripture he is not allowed to enter the promise land.
Your delivers are broken and poured out for those they deliver. They, just like You, Jesus, are body and blood spilling out for those they bring freedom to. Teach me to expect and accept this. It is good to see freedom, it is reality that it will be a suffering freedom for someone.
- Psalms 37-40
- Matthew 20-21
- Ezra 1-3
I think that control has been getting away from me during the last several days. That's a hard thing to recognize at times. It's a little disappointing as well, because that is what I spent much of my fast focusing on in prayer and such. But Lord, help me continually realize that this is not one of those character traits that you develop and then have forever. As every character trait, it is one that must be lived. So, help me remember the lessons of the fast and live in self-control.
As Exodus Community, especially in teaching meetings, we've been throwing four major points to organize ourselves around. They are in order:
1. Deliverance
2. Covenant Community
3. Knowledge of the Lord
4. Land
Now obviously, these are not entirely obvious on the face of things how they play out into our lives. But we are under a sincere belief that these four points sum up much of what God is doing in the world. So of course they've been rolling around in my head for a long, long amounts of time. So, today as I'm reading I'm reminded and intrigued by a specific thought that I've had about deliverance, the first point that helps set the rest in perspective.
As You, Jesus walk into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, everybody was crying out to You to deliver them, and to deliver them with power. You calmly made Your way through the crowds to the place of religious deliverance, the temple, and turned it upside down. In one week You went from hero to hated villain of the city. How?
Because, it seems to me, that You needed to bring about the deliverance that God is paradoxically working in. The deliverance of weakness. Deliverance of the weak by the humble and the meek. By the ones who, just like You did, are willing to point others upward instead of to themselves or to their congregations.
You deliver people. You deliver them in any way You choose. But it seems to me that one of Your favorite mediums is weakness. The Israelites are delivered by wandering through the desert for forty years, You specifically do not take them out in a show of their power, nor do You deliver them by leading them immediately into mighty battles. Instead, it is a weak wandering freedom.
Elijah, in one of the more uplifting deliverances, slays 400 prophets of Bail after a confrontation and test against them in front of all the people. But Elijah's deliverance? He is chased into the desert for fear of losing his life. Indeed, great things happened, and a people were led into freedom from a false god, but the one who bought that freedom suffered.
Even Moses, the leader of the great Exodus, suffers as a provider of deliverance. He suffers his own people indeed, but in 2nd greatest slap in the face in all of Scripture he is not allowed to enter the promise land.
Your delivers are broken and poured out for those they deliver. They, just like You, Jesus, are body and blood spilling out for those they bring freedom to. Teach me to expect and accept this. It is good to see freedom, it is reality that it will be a suffering freedom for someone.
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