Raising souls

I’ve heard it said many times that children go through phases. There’s the newborn phase, the infant phase, the toddler phase, the terrible twos phase, the preteen phase, the teenager phase. Not to mention the phase of lying, of hitting, of pushing the limits. Children, it seems, are constantly in one phase or another.

But I don’t remember ever hearing that parents go through phases. I’ve never heard of it but as I think back over my years as a parent I know that we do. When I became a parent it wasn’t by choice, I didn’t have the normal nine months to get ready to be a parent. I poured over no books, prepared in no way. One day I was in the teenage phase of life and the next, with no warning, I entered the parenthood phase.

Without ever going through the nine month get ready period I became a mother. In those early days I had no idea what was happening, I simply thought I was babysitting. It was months later before I realized that I had become a mother to a child that wasn’t mine.

Because I fell into parenthood I went through no preparations. I had no thoughts of how I might raise that baby. I didn’t even pick out clothes for her. I simply answered the door one day and had a one week old baby handed into my care.

And that was how I became a parent.

My parenting style pretty much came the same way. I never planned how I wanted to raise that child, never thought that I was raising her. I was simply caring for her as she needed to be cared for in that day.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years, and I was still parenting the same way. I reacted in the moment, raised her by the methods I had seen my mother and grandmother use. I went with what I knew and never thought about whether or not I should do anything different.

Five years later I became a mother again. That time I had the nine months to prepare. I shopped for clothes, diapers, and furniture. I had a baby shower. I was given plenty of well-meaning advice.

And still I simply parented in the moment. I fed my hungry newborn, changed diapers as they became soiled. I changed clothes, washed clothes, fed the baby, and changed diapers. Anyone that’s ever had a newborn understands exactly how much of a cycle that is. Somewhere in all of that I also enjoyed my brand new baby, cleaned house, experienced the trials of a colicky baby and learned what it was like to be a new mother all over again.

I did it all in the moment depending on the methods I had seen my mother and grandmother use and on the lessons I had learned with the first baby I raised. Unlike with the first baby I did make a few decisions with the second. I chose to use cloth diapers. I chose to breastfeed. And there went the extent of any forethought into how I wanted to raise baby. In time I also knew that homeschooling would be in our future.

But that was it. I had no philosophy, no greater plan. I was simply raising baby in the moment. And in the moment we continued. In time I came to the conclusion that it’s best to monitor what children watch on TV and so I did. In time I learned that this worked and that didn’t. In time I was still parenting in the moment.

Much of parenting is done in the moment. We often ask our children why they did such and such and they usually respond with ‘I don’t know.’ I think if someone had asked me why I raised a child a certain way at a certain time I would pretty much give the same I don’t know answer.

Because I raised them based off what was happening in the moment. As I realized that they were getting older and probably shouldn’t be exposed to certain things I stopped letting them be exposed but there was no forethought involved, it was decided at the moment when I realized it. From that point on decisions were based off that way of raising them but it still wasn’t planned ahead.

Eventually, as more babies came, the parenting got harder…and easier. With experience came the automatic reactions. And still I parented in the moment with no forethought involved. They were my children. I wanted them happy. I expected certain behavior from them and overlooked others.

As I grew older, as more children came along, as I matured as a parent, I began to see that what could easily be done when there was only one was difficult when there were many. I began to see that the problems that never came up with one child were daily occurrences with two, or three, or four. I also began to see that changes had to be made when you had an older child that loved little toys and a baby that wanted to put everything in their mouth.

And still I parented in the moment. There was never any forethought to what the child or children would become.

It’s only been very recently that I’ve begun to see that there’s so much more to parenting than parenting in the moment. There are times I wish I could go back and do it all again with the knowledge that parenting shouldn’t just happen in the moment. That isn’t an option and I wouldn’t choose it if I could but sometimes the thought is there. Sometimes I think of things I should have taught them, things I should have encouraged, things I shouldn’t have allowed that I did.

As I became a parent, and for many years afterward, I did what I had seen my mother and grandmother do. But what I don’t remember them ever doing in their child raising was thinking ahead and parenting based on a bigger picture.

That is the point I’m at now. I have begun to see that parenting is about raising children in the moment but it’s also about a bigger picture. There’s so much more to it than I ever believed in those early years of being a mother.

When that precious life first began to form inside me, or when it was handed to me quite unexpectedly, what I never realized was that I had been entrusted with so much more than just the baby that I could see and think of.

While my mind thought innocent new baby…I missed the bigger picture. While I parented a curious infant through reaching for and grabbing things…I missed the bigger picture. While I looked at my fit throwing toddler and wanted to pull my hair out while keeping in mind that their feelings had become more than they could bear…I missed the bigger picture.

That precious life that grew within me wasn’t just the tiny innocent baby I imagined…it was a soul entrusted into my care. The baby handed to me across the threshold wasn’t just a tiny bundle of innocence…she was a soul handed to me to care for and teach. The baby that kept yanking things off shelves and pulling peoples hair wasn’t merely curious…it was a soul that needed gentle teaching as the evil rooted in us with Adam began to manifest itself. The toddler that lay at my feet screaming and kicking because something hadn’t gone their way wasn’t just releasing emotions that had become too much for them to handle…it was a soul that was spewing the selfishness of their little hearts that needed correction.

Sad as it may be…I think it took losing my baby for me to see all of that. It took thinking on, praying over, and pondering the purpose for a baby that was gone nearly as soon as we knew of it for me to understand that they aren’t just babies…they are souls.

It also took some of the blog posts that I have written to help me see just what is at stake as we raise these little souls that have been handed into our care. We must by the very nature of raising children, parent in the moment. There is no other way. We can’t foresee exactly what any child will do on a given day. We don’t know which child will be prone to throwing fits and which one will lie. We can’t know how our actions today may affect our child’s tomorrows. And so we must parent in the moment and yet I’m also beginning to see that we must also parent with a head and a heart looking toward the eternity of little souls that have been handed into our care.

We can’t know if our children will ever belong to Christ. We can’t know if He will save them or leave them to the evilness of their hearts. But we can know what evil looks like. We can know what the fruits of the Spirit are. We can know that there’s more to raising a child than just raising them in the moment.

We want so much for our children to be happy. We want so much for them to have everything they need and a good part of what they want. But is that really the only thing parenting is about? We know it isn’t and yet some parents raise children as if it is. They give in to little Johnny’s immediate demand because if they don’t he will become so upset that he has trouble breathing, or he has an anxiety attack, or he falls off his chair, or… No, what he’s doing is throwing a fit based on the sin of his heart.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m as guilty as the next person of having given in to those sin filled temper tantrums. Somewhere in the early days of my parenting I heard that a child throws a fit because their emotions become more than they can bear and that we shouldn’t punish them for it because they need to be allowed to express those feelings. And I fell for it.

As a result I had toddlers screaming and kicking at my feet as I worked around the house, I had them crying in anger in the store because they couldn’t have what they wanted. I parented in the moment based on something an expert had said and I fell for it 100%.

What I didn’t know, didn’t think of, was that the strong emotions that toddler was expressing and I was allowing was a fit based on their selfish desires. They were demanding to have their way and when they didn’t get it they were expressing their outrage through screaming, kicking, yelling, and whatever other manner of behavior they exhibited in the moment. And as I felt my way through that moment with frustration and desperation I never realized that inside that child I loved so much was more than just their feelings for this moment. I never stopped to think that inside them was the heart and soul of who and what they would become for their entire life.

There’s a TV show that my children like to watch based on life in the 1800’s. In it there are many different families but there’s one family where the children are allowed to do pretty much anything they want and everyone else is expected to coddle these children, including other children. They are given to, given over to, allowed to have their way in almost everything and they are children that no one likes to be around.

I’ve known children that have been raised that way in real life. I once babysat for a woman that rarely told her daughter no. This child was demanding and hateful to her mother. When she wanted something she wanted it now and she would punish anyone around if she didn’t get it.

I highly doubt that the mother in the TV show, raising little tyrants, gave any thought to the fact that she wasn’t just raising the kids she loved so much but that she was raising souls that would one day become adults, but more than that they would one day have an eternity to face. Know I know that was television, I know it wasn’t real. The children and the parents in that show were acting and reacting based on a script that was written for the purpose of entertaining the audience but I also know there are parents and children out there just like the ones in that show.

The little girl I used to babysit is one of them. I know of others even as I write this post. I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m far from the perfect parent. I’m more likely to list the things I’ve done wrong in raising children than the things I did right. But the more I think on it, the more I realize that I’m not just raising children, I’m raising souls, the more I begin to see that every decision I make with my children is part of a larger picture.

I wasn’t raised to say ma’am or sir, rarely say it now. My great grandpa refused to teach his children to say it because he said it was something that slaves did and his children weren’t slaves. And so his children weren’t taught to say ma’am or sir. When their children were grown they didn’t teach it to their children. When those children grew up and started families they didn’t teach their children, their children didn’t teach it to their children, and now we are six generations of children in and ma’am and sir are foreign words in our family.

What was missed as my great grandpa made the decision to not teach his children to say ma’am and sir was that it wasn’t about slavery, it was about respect. As a woman I think much higher of a man that addresses me as ma’am than I do of one that doesn’t.

While saying ma’am or sir doesn’t affect the soul of the child it is a part of a larger picture. A picture I failed to paint with my children while they were small enough to do it. A child that isn’t taught to say ma’am or sir won’t say it as an adult. I’m proof of that. So are my cousins. So are my uncles.

It’s a small part of a bigger picture, a picture that must be painted while the child is small. It requires more than just parenting in the moment. It requires knowing that you want that small toddler just learning to talk to speak in a certain way and teach them to do it then so that when they are older they will still do it.

So much of my parenting was done in the moment with no thought of there even being a bigger picture. I have a friend that is raising her daughters to be the kind of wife the Bible speaks of. To reach that goal the girls are taught to obey daddy, they’re taught skills around the house, they’re taught to cook and sew. This friend saw a bigger picture that she wanted to reach with her daughters and set out to train them to be what she wanted them to be when they were adults.

When my oldest was little my goal was to make sure she could depend on herself. I had had a close family member that was raised with mom believing she wasn’t capable of doing anything and therefore mom, and anyone mom explained the situation to, treated this family member as unable to do things that other children her age did. I saw how that affected the girl not only as a child but also as she grew into an adult. I didn’t want my daughter to be that way.

And so I had a bigger plan. I wanted her to be able to function on her own. So from the time she was little I pushed her to do things for herself even when she might have thought she wasn’t able to. In that way I did have a bigger picture in mind and I did parent toward that goal. I now see the results of raising her in just such a way. She can do anything I can do. She is fully capable of taking over the house and her siblings should I be unable to do so.

When the younger children came along I still had that goal in mind but by then I had heard that a girl should be able to do everything her mother can by the time she’s 14 and so I added that goal to the list. And with the oldest I did my best to see to it that she reached that goal. She did.

There was a bigger picture in mind and she was raised to meet that bigger picture. But with the younger children even though the picture was there too many times it was easier to leave it to the oldest that could do things without my help than it was to work closely with the younger ones to see to it that they could reach those goals. The results of that show in the younger children.

Raising children to meet those goals isn’t a soul issue, it isn’t a salvation issue, but it is a part of the bigger picture of who the child will become and that is a part of the eternity of their soul.

As I write this I’m reminded of the Christian movement of taking dominion of the earth. Of people that have children with the purpose of raising them up to be ‘Christians’ that will influence the world with their beliefs. I’m not at all suggesting anything like that. I’m simply saying that what we teach our babies becomes a part of who they are as toddlers. What we teach our toddlers becomes a part of what they are as children. And what we teach them as children becomes a big part of who they are as adults.

And who they are as adults affects whether or not they believe unto salvation. The Lord will save them or not according to His purposes but I can’t help thinking that somewhere in there comes all the other factors in our life that effect what we believe. Children that are raised to believe in Christ can, and most likely will, still follow the desires of their hearts. Even if the Lord saves them there’s a good chance they will follow their hearts for a time. I did.

I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the Lord saving a child, a person, comes the childhood that they had which prepared them for their adult lives, prepared them for the belief that they would one day have in Christ.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:14-17

Those verses alone tell us that there is more to raising children than just going with the moment or making parenting choices based on our own thoughts and feelings. ..from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus…it’s a bigger picture. These children we love so much, that we want so much to raise in a way that keeps them happy is about more than just what we do right now. We are raising not just children but souls.

Souls that will have an eternity to spend in either heaven or hell.

The Lord is the only one with the knowledge and the ability to save our children but somehow…someway…the way we raise them must play a part. Each child is placed into the home that the Lord chooses for them. Each child is given parents that will raise it a certain way. There are people that will be in that child’s life that will play a role in who the child will become…siblings, grandparents, friends…parents.

There are many verses in Scripture on raising children. At different times in my life I have viewed those verses in different ways. But now I see them in a bigger picture. I see them with the idea of not only raising my beloved child but as raising a soul. I see that there is a much greater consequence or reward for each person than just what we experience on earth.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

Why? Why would we be told to raise them in this manner if it wasn’t of great importance? The foundation is being laid while they are children for who they will be as adults. For at least some of them the foundation is being laid in childhood for the Lord to save them at their appointed time.

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. Proverbs 23:13

When I read that verse I can’t help thinking of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. I can’t help remembering how they were warned to not eat from the tree of knowledge. I can’t help think that when God told them if they did they would die that He wasn’t talking about spiritual death. I can’t help thinking that when it says ‘he will not die’ it isn’t speaking of earthly life. I don’t know that for sure I’m just voicing my thoughts here. There are two very different kinds of death…one is to die in body, to die in this life, on this earth, the other is to die in spirit. Scripture tells us that we have life in Christ.

Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death. Proverbs 19:18

Here again death is spoken of. It’s very possible the death being referred to is an earthly death. We get an idea of what happened to children in Deuteronomy 21:18-21

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Those verses speak of a literal earthly death. The other verses may also but even if they do…spiritual death is the ultimate punishment for the wickedness of man’s hearts. It is the ultimate punishment for our selfish desires. Verse after verse tells of the wrath, the punishment, of God poured out on the wicked. In the verses above I have a hard time believing that any ‘son’ that did not ‘obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother’ that was brought to ‘the elders of his city’ where they ‘shall stone him to death with stones’ would be one of God’s chosen people. The next part of that verse pretty much tells us what kind of person this ‘son’ was and what eternity his soul would face…So you shall purge the evil from your midst…

That son that was put to death is described as evil. Why? What was his crime?

a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them… This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard…

His crime isn’t considered evil in our society. His crime isn’t considered a crime at all. It is often seen as nothing beyond normal behavior today but in Biblical times it was labeled as evil and punished by death. If that son was evil do you think he spent eternity in heaven?

Aside from the part about being a drunkard how many children in today’s society would fit that description? How many children in today’s society would be committing ‘crimes’ punishable by death every day?

While we as parents often parent our children in the moment, based on our own desires for how our children should act people in Biblical times had to raise children within a much stricter world than we do. There are laws that we should teach our children to obey in order to keep them from winding up in jail or living in a way that is harmful to others but there are very few things they can do in our society that will be punished with death.

How much more diligent would we be to ensure our children obeyed us if we knew they would be put to death if the law realized that they don’t obey their parents? How much more diligent would we be to remove all hints of rebelliousness in them if we knew they would die if anyone else saw them act in that way?

And yet…does the Bible not tell us that our children still face death for those ‘crimes’?

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God… so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. ⁹ But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all... 2 Timothy 3:1-9

Those verses don’t specifically speak of death but they do speak of folly, they do say that they are disqualified regarding the faith. There are plenty of other verses that tell us that those not in the faith, that those not saved by Christ, will face eternal wrath.

Do we think our children are exempt from that wrath simply because we love them? So we think that parenting in the moment with no thought for what they will become will save them from even earthly troubles? Do we think that giving in to their tantrums and demands will benefit them in the long run?

Even if we removed the very real, very scary, thought of where they may spend eternity. Even if we remind ourselves that there is nothing that we can do that will keep them from Christ if they are one of his…do we not realize that our decisions today will affect the rest of their lives?

I have an uncle that was raised rarely being told no. He was raised being allowed to do as he pleased with little to no guidance and from what I’ve been told he was a monster of a child as a boy. As a young teen he got into so much trouble with the law that he was court ordered to go to a boys school for problem boys. As an adult he has been in and out of jail, he has beat his wives, he has sought after his own pleasures with little thought for anyone else. He took his mother to court, physically fought and disowned his brother… And that’s just what I know of.

Did being raised with almost no discipline do him any good? Just on this earth…did it help or hurt him?

Through a good part of my life I know that my grandparents didn’t approve of his actions. I know that they worried over the way he treated his family. I know that he gave them grief long after he no longer lived at home.

Did my grandparents think of the bigger picture as they were raising him? Did they think of how their tyrant of a young son would become a tyrant of a man?

Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart. Proverbs 29:17

As far as I know my grandparents never had rest with my uncle. He wasn’t a delight to their hearts as he grew older.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

Folly is spoken of again here. It was in the verses from 2 Timothy also. 

so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. ⁹ But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all...

In those verses folly was linked with opposing the truth, being corrupted in mind, disqualified regarding the faith. And that was after a long list of undesirable behaviors.

Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright. Proverbs 20:11

Why is it that we can so easily see behavioral issues with other people’s children but we have a hard time seeing them in our own? Why is it that things we wouldn’t put up with in other people’s children will we overlook and ignore in our own children? It’s much easier to say I’d discipline that child for doing that but much harder to do it with our own. Even with close family members, even with children we love, it’s much easier to see the behavior issues than it is to see it in our own.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6

This verse clearly says that there’s more to raising a child than just what is happening in the moment. In order to ‘train up a child in the way he should go’ we must first figure out exactly what that ‘way’ is. We must have an idea of where it is we want them to ‘go’ so that we can figure out how to train them to get there.

These children that we love so much are more than just the little people that hold our hearts. They are people that have both an earthly and a spiritual future.

I am only recently realizing much of this. I have been a parent for two decades and I am only now figuring out a good part of that. I can’t make suggestions on how to raise souls instead of children. I can’t even figure out how to go from raising children in the moment to raising them with the thought of ‘the way he should go’ in mind. I can see that that is how we need to raise them but I can’t see how to get there.

But I am now fully realizing that there’s so much more to being a parent than loving our children and giving them the things they need. How much more would our children benefit from their parents if we kept in mind that we aren’t raising babies, toddlers, children, but that we are raising adults…husbands…wives…moms….dads? How much more would they benefit if we raised them with a mind toward what they would become instead of just making things easier for ourselves?

How much would they benefit if we simply raised them to not acquire any of these traits…

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure…

How much more would they benefit if we raised them with the thought of their souls in mind?