Dr. David Jeremiah said this once in a sermon I listened to and I’ve never forgotten it.
I heard it when I was facing yet another battle over the family court system expectations that reproduce in nearly every separated family the idea that children are ‘resilient’ and ‘can adjust’ and therefore being shuffled between separated parent households should be the acceptable norm. I vehemently oppose this lie and I won’t ever remain silent about it.
Psalm 18:29 (NIV)
With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.
It’s quite hard to keep thinking positively when you’re always fighting against a core principle that you think is a massive failing and falsehood. Even if it seems others willingly or silently resign themselves to the status quo, we don't know each other's journey but we can't stop breaking down walls that we see need to be toppled, mended or rebuilt.
I’ve never been satisfied with what we’ve been dealing with, yet we’re living it. It often feels like I’ve only just woken up to this mind-bending, disappointing reality that I question how to cope with and wonder where God is in it? But I haven’t just woken up to it. My son’s nearing his teenage years and the most positive view possible that I can take is that I can do it because I have been doing it and God’s been doing it with us.
But what do you do when the most positive view possible doesn’t feel all that positive?
Go to the bible and its wisdom.
Philippians 4:8
FIX your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
It’s the only way, otherwise I end up being argumentative, hostile, prickly and resentful. I don’t want my heart to become a cactus patch. I desire more than anything that my heart and my life is an oasis for God’s grace.
Every day I’m learning to be a single mother to a child who’s one day older and changing constantly. He’s also a boy. Yes, shocking but true, a boy is male and I have never been male.
How do I understand him? How do I meet his momentary changing needs when he is wired so differently to me? My female thought processes are different, my female emotional responses are different, my female body and my female relationships are different.
It’s tough being a single parent to the opposite sex because there’s no other male you can bounce thoughts off with or rely on for a reality check. You have to reach across a divide without harvesting any cacti. It’s tough.
I’m aware every day that I’m not just fighting for my child’s wellbeing so he’ll be socially, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually well adjusted. I’m also fighting to shape his future perspective on a myriad of things, including, what a family should be when he hasn’t experienced that type of family and when the cultural agenda says that a family can be anything, it actually doesn’t matter. A boy doesn’t have to be a boy, a father doesn’t have to be around, a woman should want to be everything, children don’t need parenting they just need coaching and everyone who disagrees needs to shut up and bury their own consciences.
It’ll be okay, I tell myself. We’ll work our way through it. We may get bumped and scraped a little bit but God’s ushered us along until now. He’s not going to stop. Other men have grown up in similar family dynamics and God’s proven Himself to them. They know God, they love God, they live for God, they’ve learned how to be a man and are married, have kids and seem to be doing fine. It’ll be okay, I tell myself.
Fix my thoughts on whatever is true, honourable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Teach my son to do the same. Don’t believe the lie that the wheels are surely going to come off and I’m going fail him. No.
Pray my way through. Keep fighting for those principles I believe in. Reach out to connect with my son and don’t worry if he doesn’t want to get into half the conversations we need to have! Give him grace and space. And most of all, show Him love and continue to nurture his development. My love and God’s love will overcome every obstacle. That’s the most positive view I can take.
Isaiah 45:11-13 (NIV)
“This is what the Lord says—the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshalled their starry hosts. I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the Lord Almighty.”
God has our lives in His care. Look at who He is. He has chosen me as mother and my child as son and we connect in one of the deepest bonds God created. God will never let us down.
God’s Word is the most positive view possible for me. Why? Because this is what it says.
Isaiah 49:25 (NIV)
But this is what the Lord says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.
Looking to the bible for direction and guidance for how to bring up children gives us wisdom and a firm foundation. The bible is a wellspring and a fountain of life. Every principle it gives is a principle to hold on to.
Ephesians 6:4 (AMP)
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive; nor by showing favoritism or indifference to any of them], but bring them up [tenderly, with lovingkindness] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 6:1-2, 5-7 (NIV)
These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Taking the bible and applying it to our lives is the most positive thing we can do, because it will never let us down. It has wisdom, gives us understanding, reason, encouragement and insight. We can always place our hope there, and it will see us and our children through.
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