Ever feel like you're talking, and all that your kids hear is noise? Or that you've said the same thing a kajillion times and they just can't seem to remember.
I do.
And I don't have any answers. So, if you have some suggestions on how to motivate kids to listen, really listen - I'm all ears.
I've been learning a lot about how selfish I am lately - how much I want approval and love and cooperation from those three little people I serve, how much it bothers me when I don't get it. (and How stupid that sounds to say out loud.) How thankless it is to be a mom at this stage. It makes me a lot more thankful for my own mom. A lot.
It also gives me a perspective on my relationship with my own Heavenly Father that I wasn't expecting - especially when it comes to trivial thank you's. We've been having our kids say thank you before they can be excused at a meal. It's kind of ironic that the way they thank me after a meal is often the same way I thank God FOR my meal. And let me tell you, there are days that the thank you is heartfelt and sweet, and there are days that thank you is as careless as can be. I prefer the first.
Yep, motherhood is so much more than I expected, and in some ways, so much less. I DO love my kids, so much, and I'm grateful that God has seen fit to have me be the one to teach them about Him, about life, and about what it means to love others. What a heavy, heavy responsibility. What a loving God, and what a vast storehouse of His grace is there for me. Every day.
4 comments:
I echo your sentiments lady! What a daily challenge to rely on GOD for all we are - our kids are gonna turn out 'just like us' ;)
Hi Jenny,
Your thoughts are understood by us grownups. Keep helping those kids learn and practice doing what is right. We'll never be sorry that we try teaching them those lessons (except for the times where our actions get in front of our heart's desire to do right). We all have had those days, sorry to say. I guess that's another reason that we should pray for each other. May God be praised.
Jenny, I love your transparency. It's amazing how the Lord uses relationships with people to give us a clearer understanding of our relationship with Him. Lately I've been discovering lots of those little truths about myself through my marriage (I am selfish, sometimes demanding & not nearly as sweet & thankful as I should be). Many times the attitudes I'm exhibiting toward my sweet Mike are the exact same attitudes I'm exhibiting toward my Lord. There's so much to learn...thank God for His grace & forgiveness!
teach them to listen by softly saying - at unpredictable and unexpected times - things that they'll really want to hear. :-) that, at least, puts them in a frame of knowing that it is best for them to listen.
we also teach our kids the principle that they are to be listening for our voices so that when they hear, they come to us immediately - and they are responsible to hear us. seems hard-hearted sometimes, but there are consequences when they aren't listening and so they don't hear...
i find both of those principles to be true in how the Lord teaches and disciples me... i've neglected prayer, bible study or time with Him and all of the sudden He reveals an amazing nugget that makes me long to be where i can best listen to Him again... and i move out of that rut, at least for a time. and there are other times He's been speaking to me, but i've chosen not to listen and so then later, i will have sometimes painful consequences in my own life.
remember, my friend, it is not a heavy, heavy responsibility that He asks you to bear alone - He longs to take you by the hand and carry it with... and sometimes for... you. it is also an amazing joy, privilege, discipleship program and opportunity to see His grace in action, literally every moment if we but look.
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