Val’s Life

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He Rebukes Us When We Need It

My son needs a good “rebuking”. Merriam Webster defines rebuke as:

1 a: to criticize sharply b: to serve as a rebuke to 2: to turn back or keep down

My son has behaved in a way that is hurtful to me. He has said things about me behind my back that are either flat-out untrue, or that are a gross exaggeration…….in order to get his way. He has done this without consideration for mine or anyone else’s feelings. I’ve been stewing about this since yesterday, and I have been thinking about this situation in relation to this blog. You see, I want to say some things to my son. What I really want to do is chew him up one side and down the other. I want to make him feel bad for what he has done. I haven’t yet said anything to him, and that’s probably a good thing, because I may have said things that weren’t very nice or productive had I said something when I was first very upset with him.

What does God do in this situation? What does He do when I need to be “rebuked”? Thank goodness I don’t get a phone call with Him chewing me out. He doesn’t swoop down from Heaven, knock on my door, and say “We need to talk”. Sooo…….what does He do? Sometimes, when I am discussing a situation with someone close to me, He uses the other person to point out my wrong doing. (Somehow, it’s not quite as hurtful coming from someone who cares about you and who is an objective 3rd party.) Sometimes, He waits for my conscience to give me a nudge. Usually this occurs during a sermon or lesson that I am hearing. Sometimes, He points out my bad behavior by having someone treat me the way I have treated others. Funny how that is sometimes the best way for us to realize what we have done. Maybe God gave me this lesson right now because He knew I was blogging about it this week! I think the technique that God uses depends upon our spiritual maturity level, and our ability to be open to what He is trying to teach us at that moment. If we are not ready to hear the message, God usually lets us keep repeating the mistake until we get it.

So how am I going to handle my son? Well, I really don’t think that he’s mature enough to grasp the effects of his behavior. I always say that teens are toddlers in bigger bodies. If you can’t convince a toddler that the world doesn’t revolve around him, and that he can’t have everything he wants, and that just because he says “mine”, that doesn’t make it his…….well, try telling a teenager the same things. We assume that because they are older that we can reason with them. HA! I think what is in order here is for me to wait for 1) his conscience to be nudged (yes, I really believe he has one, even if buried under hormones and stupidity right now) and 2) wait for someone to treat him in the same manner so he can realize what he’s done. Or….if any of you would like to be the objective 3rd party who knocks some sense into him……be my guest. : )

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Pudding Good

What! Two blog posts in one day? Yup, but you’re gonna love this one.

C’mon over and have some pudding good.

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What We Want vs. What We Need

This week, I found it easier to combine #2 & #3 on the “How God Parents Us” series……so here goes:

2. He doesn’t always give us what we want

3. He always gives us what we need

Here are some things my kids have recently asked for:

Grace – The Tinkerbell movie, various toys, to be Ariel for Halloween

Luke – money…a car……his cell phone back (grades, again)

Elizabeth – money, a coat, a pair of furry boots

Most of those things are not unreasonable requests. Elizabeth definitely needs a coat for winter, but she didn’t need the furry boots (DH is the one who took her shopping……you can guess why that happened). Neither one of my kids particularly need money (just to spend), they have all of their basic needs met. Grace never needs the things she asks for, but because of Grandma (and Aunt Vicky, and Aunt Nat, and Cousin Mindy, and pudding Daddy) she usually gets what she asks for.

When I think of all the things I’ve asked God for (I’m not listing most of them here), I wonder which ones He actually thinks I need, and which ones He thinks I can live without. If you look at the ask vs. get rate, He apparently doesn’t think I “need” most of them, or He’s just holding off giving them to me. From what I can tell, He usually doesn’t give me what I ask for, so I can learn from whatever painful experience I am going through. Talk about learning through natural consequences! I can never say that God doesn’t meet my basic needs. I am saved. I am loved. I have a nice, cozy house to live in that doesn’t have a bunch of things wrong with it. I have a job (well, two or three)…..we have enough money to live on. We all have health insurance (with Grace, that is a huge blessing!). No one here is ill (not counting Grace, because for the most part she is healthy), or disabled. I have many friends and family who care about me. No one in this house ever goes hungry (unless by choice). We have heat, air conditioning, and running water. We have many other “creature comforts”. God always meets my needs. He doesn’t always give me what I want.

Too many parents give in to their children’s every little want and whim. Does your child really “need” what he or she is asking for? The cell phone? The new toy? The trip to McDonald’s? Why do parents give in? Guilt. The next time your child wants something, ask him or her (and yourself) do you really need this? If your child is old enough ask them to explain why it is a need, and not just a want. You might want to remind yourself that God never gives you what you ask for out of guilt. And as a parent, you should not give your kids things out of guilt either. God gives us things because He loves us and knows it is the best thing for us. If we don’t get what we ask for, it’s because He knows best.

Matthew 7:9-11 – Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

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He Answers When I Call

Part 1 of the blog series - How does God parent us?

Isn’t it funny sometimes to think of God as our parent? Yet, Jesus often refers to God as our Father (Matthew 6:32, Matthew 5:35, John 4:23….and so on). In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus modeled for us that we should pray “Our Father who art in heaven”. When we are children, we look up to our parents as the “fixers of everything”. For a while, they know everything, and we don’t really question that until our tween years, when friends begin to have an influence. When we scrape a knee, or are barfing in the night, who do we call for? Usually Mom or Dad. I’ve never yet heard a kid call out for their best friend during times of crisis. As a parent, it’s one of our top priorities to be there when our kids call for help. Not that we give them everything they want, but during the tough times, we are there for them, we carry them and stand up for them.

There have been times in my life when it seemed like God didn’t answer when I called. I either got a busy signal and had to call back, or leave a voice message. “Umm….hello, God, I need some help down here. So and so did such and such, and I don’t know what to do. My daughter made a bad choice and could use some straightening out. My son is driving me up the wall with his bad attitude and I want to throttle him. My husband and I are disconnected, and I don’t know how to get it worked out.” Sometimes it took Him weeks, months even to get back to me, or He did call me back, but I wasn’t available to get the message. That’s frustrating when you are calling out for help and it feels like He’s not there. Nevertheless, there has yet to be an instance where God has let me down. He’s always there when I call. EVERY TIME.

Sometimes it seems to our kids like we don’t answer them when they call. Sometimes we don’t answer them. We are tired, we are stressed, we want to watch this tv show, or go and do something else. If this happens too many times, kids get the message that we are not available and they stop calling to us to help them. They turn to other places to get their help, and most often it’s not God they are calling for help.

What then, can we do? We teach them to turn to Him. We need to let our children see our struggles, and how we trust God to help us through. We need not tell our children things that are not for them to worry about, but it’s ok to say to them, “I’m really struggling with something right now, and I’m praying and trusting that God will help me”. When He does, make sure you let them know!

Here’s some inspiration for those of you calling out to the Father for help.

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A family needs your help

I don’t know this family personally, but I was alerted to their story today. If you, or someone you know can help, please pass this on to them.

The story

Their site

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Moms are made in His Image

Last Wednesday, at Bible study, our pastor taught on a passage out of Mark chapter seven, about the mother who pleads with Jesus to save her demon possessed daughter. One of Pastor Fred’s points was about God making moms in His image, (Genesis 1:27 confirms this for us: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them) by giving mothers some special characteristics that God himself has towards us. Mothers are fiercely passionate about their children. Mothers would give up their lives in a heartbeat for their children, the picture of what our Father did for us. Mothers hurt when their children are hurting. Mothers want the best for their children. If we get lost or run away, a mother desperately watches and waits for her child to return home. I challenge anyone to contradict that our Heavenly Father doesn’t feel the same way about us.

As Pastor Fred was teaching, I began to furiously scribble some notes about the way that God parents us, and how we should strive to be like the Father in the way that we parent our children. I will be doing a series of blogs on this.

How does God parent us?
1) He responds when we call out to him
2) He doesn’t always give us what we want
3) He always gives us what we need
4) He rebukes us when we need it
5) He allows us to make mistakes
6) He expects us to be obedient, but knows that we will fail

What does God want us to learn from being parents?
1) We are not really in control, and we need to surrender our children to Him
2) He uses our children to conform us to His image
3) He will use what He teaches us to also teach our children

This blog dedicated to Pastor Fred Young, East Side Baptist Church

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Thank you, teacher

Last night, I was helping my sweet teenage daughter with some homework (last minute, of course). Coupled with trying to get my own homework done for school, helping my kids with their homework is sometimes a challenge. While I was thinking about the studying and work I still need to do for my classes, I was remembering a particular high school teacher I had who taught me many of the study skills that I still use today. Her name at the time was Susan Allen (she is now Susan Hauser). She was my junior year English teacher, as well as my teacher for a course called College Study Skills. She taught us how to use the SQ3R method of note-taking and how to use those notes to study for tests. I still use the skills she taught about previewing and reading chapters in books, and how to take notes out of a book and during lectures. While time has allowed for some forgetfulness on my part, I apparently recall enough to succeed even in graduate level courses.

Since my own kids only have a couple of years left before college, and since I am the official “homework helper”, I sometimes worry about my kid’s study skills (or lack thereof). My kids do well in school, but I don’t think that kids today realize the importance of studying over time, and that true learning occurs with repeated exposure. (Another treasure from Mrs. Hauser: Repeated exposure creates long term memory.) Think of all the things that your child learns from you with 18 years of repeated exposure. How to talk, how to treat others, the importance of education, how to function in relationships. Sometimes it’s mind boggling all the information they have absorbed in that amount of time. If you’re worried about your child’s performance in school or in life, take a few minutes to reassess the “study skills” you’ve taught them.

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Teens and sex

So, dear son comes home from school today and says, “So and so got into a fight at school today”. One of the boys who was involved got jumped by two other boys, who are stepbrothers. Reason for the fight? The boy who got jumped has been having sex with the two other boys’ younger sister. The younger sister is a former friend of my daughter’s, and in the same grade. I’m not sure what finally made the situation get to this breaking point (the two young lovers have been going at it for months), so I found it particularly interesting that two young men finally decided to defend their sister’s honor. While I’m thankful that we don’t live in a part of the world where said young lovers would be stoned for their activities, you have to shake your head in wonderment of it all.

Knowing some of the background of this story, what I’m really saddened by is the young woman, and her total lack of respect for herself. What is missing in our society, that no one is teaching these girls (in a way they get it), that they are worth waiting for? Ah, my heart goes out to her. Dear daughter and I are attending a twelve week class at church based on the “Every Young Woman’s Battle” series by Stephanie Ethridge. This week, we broke out into small groups, and my group had five young ladies in it. The book is about teaching young women to lead lives of sexual integrity, and the dangers and pitfalls which lead girls into premarital sex. Once the discussion got going, a lot of interesting stuff was said. Three out of the five girls were from broken homes. One of the others talked about how she doesn’t like her dad at all and doesn’t want him to even hug her. It doesn’t take a genius to know that one of the reasons that girls feel so compelled to give themselves away is because of the lack of two fundamental relationships; one with God, and one with their dad. One of the girls believes that her dad left because of her. Oh the heartache! How do we go about healing and teaching these young hearts? How do we get them to believe in themselves and the dreams and plans that God has for them? Not saying that I have all the answers here, but to moms and dads — talk early and talk often. Most of all, set that example that they so desperately need.

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The Stay at Home Dad

I had the privilege of going to the Extraordinary Women’s Conference this weekend at Raytown Baptist Church, in Raytown, Missouri. It was Friday night and Saturday. It was a nice little “getaway”, 30 minutes on the other side of town. A woman’s once in a while chance to grab her purse and her keys, and say to her man as she walks out the door, “have fun while I’m gone”. Every woman who attends these functions looks forward to it for days. She knows she will have some precious time with friends, here some good Christian music, and some amazing Christian speakers. She is still glowing with lifted spirits as she blasts some 3rd Day on the way home. Then she pulls in the driveway. The garage door goes up. She gathers her goods from the day and heads inside. To…….a house that was clean when she left the night before. To dear hubby and the little one playing in her room. The kitchen table is cluttered. There is a Matchbox car ramp extending from the top of the front door looping into the living room. Assorted knickknacks have been used to hold it together. Is that duct tape on the wall? There are dishes in the sink and on the stove. Dear hubby has had a run-in with the weed eater and has left a trail of bloody little pieces of tissue extending from kitchen to bathroom. “Oh, that didn’t make it in the trash?” Sweet bug’s room is a total disaster; her bed unmade and toys everywhere. I can tell they’ve been hard at work. Have fun, indeed.
As I made myself a snack and gazed around in wonderment, it crossed my mind what it would be like if dear hubby was a stay at home dad and I worked full time outside of the home. I have a feeling I would walk into a tornado-strewn home on a daily basis. The house would be a mess, the kids dirty, and the laundry undone. I might say to him, “What have you been doing all day? Sitting on the computer and picking your nose?” (Hey, better than the bon-bon and soap opera line, more realistic, too). I can imagine him looking at me, and saying, “No, I was busy raising our kid. After all, you told me to have fun.”

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I’m not nice, I’m self-actualized

There was a class discussion a few weeks ago in one of my grad classes. The topic was Maslow’s characteristics of self-actualized people. Another student in class commented that self-actualized people are often viewed as distant, cold even. Reason? Self-actualized people do not need the approval of others in order to be ok.

Watching my teenagers, and other teenagers I know, I like to think about the future for a time when my children will not be so influenced by others. It’s really a shame that our children are constantly bombarded with so many conflicting messages. Some come from media, some from friends or family, some come from their own parents. How’s a poor kid supposed to know what to do?

Abraham Maslow posited that very few persons ever achieve complete self-actualization. If you review the list, it is easy to understand why. From a personal point of view, I do not necessarily think that some of them are very desirable traits to strive towards.

While I’m not working on becoming a completely self-actualized person, I was pleased to note that I do exhibit several of the traits. When I mentioned this to my dear hubby, I told him I was going to start saying, “You’re right, I’m not nice, I’m self-actualized”. I thought it quite amusing, he didn’t get it. The point is, it’s ok to be your own person, to not need the influence of others. I’m not saying you don’t need other people, but it’s possible to function and thrive without needing the world’s or other people’s validation for who you are, what you stand for, or what you do.

Valerie Owings is a parenting consultant striving to improve the lives of families. You can visit her site at www.parentingwithpeace.com.