Parenting Lessons

I think, for those of us who have children, God often uses our lovely young ones to teach us a lesson about His love for us. It's appropriate - He is our Father, He loves us very much, we do annoying things. . . .

Mornings are bad here at the Gibson household. I try - most of the time - to have lots of patience. I am not a morning person. Elyssa, being my clone, is not a morning person. I struggle to get myself up and going, but I also have to get her up and going. It stinks, if I may be blunt. I just hate the mornings at our house.

This morning was typical. I fly out of bed at 6:36 after pushing the snooze button exactly 3 times. On a side note, I've decided that 4 is a better number of snooze pushes for me. I set the clock for 6 - the snooze is 9 minutes long. If I get up by 6:36, we should be able to get to school on time. (I decided to give myself more sleep time so earlier this week I set the alarm for 6:09. I had to keep the numbers the same, you see. But 3 pushes is just not enough for me. Oh and my alarm clock is set 5 minutes fast. Somehow it just makes me feel better to get up at 6:36, but in my head I know it's only 6:31. I feel good about that. It's very strange.) ANYWAY, I get up and do the shower thing. I'm out by 6:50 or so. Rejoicing in my head because it's really only 6:45 or so. It's like I think I'm fooling the world with my little time change. ANYWAY (again) I drag - seriously - drag Elyssa from the bed and walk her to the bathroom. She sits and dozes on the toilet for awhile. (She once even asked me to change the TP so that it would be a better pillow.) Then she gets back into bed. AUGH!

While I'm drying my hair, I'm constantly saying, "Elyssa - get dressed. Elyssa - it's time to put your clothes on now. Elyssa. Elyssa!" She waits until the LAST second. I'll tell her that I'm putting my shoes on and then I'm leaving. She gets frantic that I will leave without her so she jumps up and starts freaking out. Then, she has the audacity to think she has time to change her mind about what to wear, play with the dog, change her backpack and so on. I'm rushing around making sure the dog has water, getting breakfast made so we can eat in the car (I told you mornings are not good!), putting lunch stuff in the the lunch boxes, starting the car to warm up, loading the car and so on. All she has to do is put on clothes, socks, shoes and get in the car. That's it!

This morning while I'm all busy, she makes 2 - that's right, TWO - water containers for school. I ask her to please take her cereal and my banana to the car. "OK Mom," she says and continues to fart around. This is about the time I start yelling.

Finally we are in the car and are driving down the driveway (with me saying, "Look at the time! It's 7:37! We are going to be LATE! Grrrr! (It's really only 7:33 - that's right, my car clock is 4 minutes fast - I'm a nut!) Then I say, "where's your cereal?" She left it in the garage because she tells me, she didn't have enough hands for the 2 drink containers and her breakfast. Well, I lost it. I can't go back, we're already late. Now she's going to be hungry. . . blah blah blah. She tries to apologize but I don't want to hear it. I turn up the music loud and we drive for about 10 minutes with Christmas music blaring in our ears.

The music gets annoying so I turn it down. She whispers, "Will you please forgive me?" I say, a little harshly I'm sure, "I forgive you every single day and you never change!" Then BAM, in my head I can just hear the Holy Spirit saying, "Hmmmm. Erin, it's funny but God probably says that to you every single day and every single day you don't change. Isn't that interesting?"

CRAP!

It's true. We screw up in some way EVERY single day. We ask for forgiveness. And He always - very kindly - says, "I love you. I forgive you." I doubt He adds on the "but you never change" in His angry voice. It still amazes me that He loves me that much. I get caught in the trap of feeling like I have to earn it somehow. I want to know WHY He loves me. I don't deserve it. (That of course is THE POINT!)

I learned a huge lesson today. My parenting skills are only a tiny glimmer of God's parenting to me. I should keep that in mind.

Joy

I need to find mine again.

When I'm not smack dab in the middle of Christ's love, the world gets a dreary for me. I assume it's that way for everyone else too - but maybe others are just better at hiding it than I am. People that don't believe in Christ at all - how can they seem so happy? My patience is shot. I yell at my dog. I get frustrated with Elyssa. My kids at school drive me crazy. I eat horribly and feel like crap. I don't exercise and life feels like it's spinning too fast for me to catch up. I don't write. My house gets messy.

My whole world falls apart!

I am going to make a concentrated effort to look for the joy in my life. I'm not looking for happy times so much as I want peaceful joy.

A blogger I know, Carlotta, wrote about feeling homesick. She explained how I feel so often - just out of place. Her last paragraph is where I want to find myself more. Realizing that the deep desire to be with God is not pointing out what's wrong with me, but rather what's right with me. I'm so quick to look at the dark and dreary side. I want to stop and smile as she does.

I'd like to write more. I want to write more. I need to write more. I just don't feel like I can catch up - but I'm not sure what I'm racing for. Does that make sense? I made my Christmas cards tonight and found the perfect verse to put on them. I'm going to leave you with that:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13