Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

God is right on time. (But I wish He'd hurry up.)

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Last Sunday at our church community group, we were talking about how the Jews were expecting the Messiah, but Jesus did not fit with their expectations of a powerful, political figure. In the midst of the discussion, our leader commented that although circumstances around us don’t meet our expectations and often seem out of whack, “God is always right on time.”

It might seem silly, but it got me thinking about the expectations I have for daily life with my kids. Expectations that someday they will obey and share (maybe tomorrow). Expectations that I will be more patient. Expectations that I will suddenly love to cook and clean now that I have a beautiful, newer home. Expectations that Christopher will pee in the potty and not in his pants (this is the big one).

Since the move, we have had some serious potty regression with each new transition–Daddy being gone, Daddy being home, Daddy going back to work. I’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to help. I’m sure that I was the only one at community group the other night applying this great wisdom to potty training. But it occured to me that while I think God needs to fix this problem for me and He’s definitely running late, instead He is right on time.

I suspect that ultimately this has nothing to do with Christopher and everything to do with me learning patience, endurance, and how to show my son I love him as I change his underwear for the fifth time that day. My son’s failure to use the potty appropriately is an expression of God’s love for me and provision for me as He teaches me the lessons I so badly need to learn. This truth helped me make it through three accidents today with a much more joyful heart!

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"Don’t Make Me Count to Three!" (continued)

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I’ve finished Don’t Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman (see previous post below for the basic premise of the book) and have been trying to apply the principles for about three weeks. I recommend that every Christian mom buy a copy immediately, and just for the record, if you have read the book already and didn’t tell me about it, you are in big trouble! There are many ideas that were meaningful to me, and I should probably make your life easier by splitting them into more than one post. But I want to get this done while they are fresh in my head, so read as far as you can and feel free to come back tomorrow. I won’t know. 🙂 So here it goes . . .

p. 33: “Behavior is simply what alerts you to your child’s need for correction. But don’t make the mistake that so many parents make and allow your desire for changed behavior to replace your desire for a changed heart.” She goes on to quote Tedd Tripp’s words about how changed behavior that does not stem from a changed heart being the same hypocrisy displayed by the Pharisees. The tough part is that going beyond the changed behavior to a changed heart takes so much more time and energy and thought.

P. 40: “Our goal in probing our child’s heart is to bring him to the sober assessment of himself as a sinner, to help him recognize his need for Christ, and to teach him to act, think and be motivated as a Christian. It is not that difficult to train our children to act as Christians. We have really accomplished something when we have trained them to think like Christians. Thinking like a Christian will help them grow in wisdom and prepare them to govern their own behavior in a way that will glorify God.”

She makes the point multiple times that the reason we must train and instruct our children in obedience is so someday they will be ready to submit in obedience to God. It isn’t so people will marvel at my obedient, well-mannered children or to make my life easier because we all get along so nicely. I want their disobedience to point them to their need for a Savior. I want them to grow in wisdom as I speak God’s Word (Scripture) to them. As Ginger Plowman puts it, I want to prepare their hearts for the Savior by praying for them and being a godly example (p. 75).

One section of this book that was especially convicting was one of her guidelines for verbal correction: using the right tone of voice. She quotes Proverbs 15:28: “The heart of the righteous weighs its answers but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.” Too often I fly off the handle and just start scolding Christopher without stopping to pray and choose my words and tone of voice carefully. Plowman also quotes H. Clay Trumbull’s writings in 1891 about scolding, which he defines as “an expression of a bad spirit and a loss of temper” and “to assail or revile with boisterous speech.” He writes: “If a child has done wrong, a child needs talking to; but no parent ought to talk to a child while that parent is unable to talk in a natural tone of voice, and with carefully measured words. If the parent is tempted to speak rapidly . . . the parent’s first duty is to gain entire self-control . . . Scolding never benefits the one against whom it is directed . . . however, it may give physical relief to the one who indulges in it.” (p. 89-90 in Plowman’s book). All I can say about that is OUCH.

Another great thought from the book is the way she defines the standard of obedience. In their family, they must obey “all the way, right away, and with a happy heart” (p. 117). She talks about expecting complete obedience, immediate obedience, and joyful obedience. To fail in any of these aspects is an act of disobedience. The thought of enforcing this standard is overwhelming and exhausting to me, but I am motivated by knowing that this is how my children should someday obey Jesus. It is my responsibility to not let them become lazy in obeying me so that they will not be lazy in obeying their Lord and Savior.

Finally, I continue to be convicted of my need to know Scripture better and use it more often in the training and instruction of my children. After reading I Corinthians 13 with Christopher and mentioning it often, I praised him one morning for how kind he was being to his brother. He replied, “Yes! Just like we read in Mommy’s Bible!” It was so encouraging to me that he is starting to understand that these are not arbitrary principles given on my own authority. These are principles given to us by our Creator as we submit to His authority. I went through Plowman’s book and made notecards of all the Bible verses she mentioned. The notecards are sorted into two stacks: verses of encouragement or conviction for my kids and verses of encouragement or conviction for me. Here’s the list–and if you don’t have a Bible handy, you can look them up at http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/.

For the kids:

I Corinthians 13:4-7 (love)—Galatians 5:22-23 (fruits of the Spirit)—Matthew 5:9 (promoting peace)—Ephesians 6:1 and Colossians 3:20 (obeying your parents)—Philippians 2:14 (complaining)—I Thessalonians 5:16-18 and Psalm 100:2 (having a joyful attitude)— Proverbs 17:5b (not rejoicing at your brother’s sorrow)—Matthew 18:15 (solving conflict with your brother)—Ephesians 4:32 (kindness and forgiveness)—Proverbs 6:16-19 (six things God hates).

For moms:

James 1:2-4 (positive results of enduring trials)—James 1:5 (wisdom)—Proverbs 15:28 (weighing my words)—Hebrews 4:12 (the power of God’s Word)—Colossians 3:13 (forgiving my kids–see post below)— Proverbs 3:5-6 (trusting the Lord)—James 3:17-18 (God’s wisdom)—Ephesians 6:4 (do not provoke your children)—Proverbs 22:15 (the rod of discipline).

And the verse I’m clinging to as I pray for the wisdom and strength to put all of this into practice:

Galatians 6:8-9: For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

I’m not sure when that due season is–it is probably not anytime soon, and may not even be during my time on this earth–but God has promised that we WILL reap what we sow if we do not give up!

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Forgiveness

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As I picked up an old issue of R.C. Sproul’s “Tabletalk” magazine last night, I looked at the topic–The Freedom of Forgiveness–and expected a nice reminder of how I’ve been forgiven by God in Christ. I’ve never thought that forgiving others was something I struggled with. I haven’t been sinned against or betrayed in any major way, and I generally live at peace with people close to me. (Or so I thought.)

As I read the words of various authors in the magazine, God brought this thought to my mind: Have I truly forgiven the people living in my home as I should? I realized that I have not forgiven Christopher for exasperating me, disobeying me, and generally making my life difficult by being a stubborn 3-year-old who requires almost constant training and instruction. The familiar verses from Matthew 18:21-22 took on new meaning when seen in this light: “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.'”

I’ve never thought that there was anyone in my life who would require this kind of extravagant forgiveness. But now that I think about, 70 times 7 sounds just about like the number of times my kids make me want to pull my hair out on any given day. And I realized that the way I respond to Christopher when he disobeys is usually as though it is the 489th time he has disobeyed me, and my frustration and resentment has been building with each infraction.

What would it look like to truly forgive Christopher for each act of obedience? It would mean that my response would be as though it was the first time he had EVER disobeyed. All previous offenses would be completely forgotten. I believe that response would look very different from the one I typically display. The same applies to my marriage–what if I responded to Noel as if it were the first time he had ever let me down or failed to meet my needs? What if I didn’t just roll over all the previous hurt and bitterness and apply it to every new time he offends me?

How can I possibly do this? In Matthew 18, Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the servant who had been forgiven a massive debt, but failed to forgive another person who owed him a much small debt. I can forgive my kids and husband seven times seventy times because I have offended God infinitely more times than that. In fact, I was an enemy of God, and He still loved me, pursued me, redeemed me, and adopted me as His daughter, all because of the blood of His Son shed on the cross for me. This amazing truth frees me to forgive and requires me to forgive.

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Smelling like crap

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I have a friend, Sarah, who recently adopted her son from Ethiopia. That sentence makes it sound like such a simple thing, but it was far from simple. Sarah and her husband spent two years trying to adopt a son–hitting dead ends at every turn and having to start over countless times. As the long, difficult months turned into years, they kept pursuing their son. Finally, last month, they brought him home. And he has diarrhea. The crazy diarrhea that most of us would only encounter in our worst nightmares. The covered-in-poop needing-a-bath-at-2-a.m. variety that I think should earn Sarah the Mom’s Medal of Honor.

Sarah said something to me last week that I loved. (And don’t worry, friends, I’ll always get your permission before quoting you by name on my blog.) Of course, Sarah is thrilled to have her son with her and loves him immensely in spite of their poop-filled nights. And she said that this experience with her son is a great illustration of the love that God our Father has for us. We smell like crap to Him, and He still pursues us and loves us as His children.

It might seem a little shocking that Sarah thinks we smell like crap to God. (Or smelled like crap, if we are in Christ.) But this passage from Romans backs up her statement:

Romans 8:6-11 (emphasis mine):

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

I’ve never noticed before how in this passage, it seems that Paul has to ease us into the truth of our relationship to God before Christ. We don’t want to hear this, do we? But we can get used to the idea that we were weak without Christ. Although we were weak, Christ died for us. But then Paul says we were a little worse than that–we were sinners. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Then Paul hits us with this: we were enemies of God. Enemies?!? What could I have possibly done to be called an enemy of God? And yet, while we were enemies of God, Christ died for us.

If the only thing separating me from God was a little gossip and a dash of impatience with my children, maybe I could work that out on my own–somehow making myself righteous in God’s sight. But if I’m an enemy of God, how do I start to fix that? I can’t. It can only be done by the blood of Christ shed for me, reconciling me to God.

How does this apply to my struggles as a mom? Although it’s been awhile since we’ve had diarrhea around here, I often feel disgusted by my kids’ selfishness, exasperated by their disobedience, and exhausted by their constant neediness. However, I am called to love them as God has loved me. That is, I am called to love them when there is nothing about them that is lovely. I am called to love them sacrificially and lavish grace on them even though they have done nothing to deserve it.

How amazing that God would pursue me, reconcile me to Himself through the death of His own Son, and adopt me as His daughter when all I have to bring to the table is my status as an enemy of God who smells like crap.

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