Love or hate?

A number of months ago I wrote an article that I titled 'What is love', you can find that post here: http://journeyingtochrist.blogspot.com/2016/09/what-is-love.html#comment-form. I don't recall all the reasons why I wrote that post but I do remember that it had a lot to do with what America defines as love today.

Because I could remember writing the post but not what was in it I reread that post today. It was just as applicable today as it was the day I wrote it. But today I read something that has me wanting to write on love again.

Love truly is a funny thing. It's a very complicated thing and if we were to really ask ourselves what love is...could we come up with an adequate answer? By human definition, love is this feel good emotion, said to come from the heart, that makes us inclined to favor one person over another. We marry for love. We love our children. We love our friends.

We may even tell people we love them when we don't mean it. As a kid I had a relative that would tell me they loved me, if I didn't answer with 'I love you' then I would get into trouble. So...I responded by saying 'I love you' but I never once felt love for that person, in fact I strongly disliked that person but to save myself...I said 'I love you'.

I once knew someone that would say 'anyone can say I love you, you have to show someone that you love them'.

Love is...what?

Is it actions? Is it words? Is it a gushy feeling deep inside you when you're around someone?

The other day my husband was doing something that was just...my husband, but in his doing what he naturally does it made me laugh and brought a bit of fun and joy to my day and so I told him, ''I love you''. He responded by telling me he loved me and then asking, 'what was that for', not because I don't tell him that I love him, I do, but because of the way I said it and maybe the tone of voice I used when I said it. But the truth is I told him I loved him because of the way he made me feel at that moment, it was a happy gushy kind of feeling and he caused it with his actions, which had nothing to do with me. He was just being him, doing something that had nothing to do with me, but I saw him and it made me happy and so I told him I loved him.

But that was a feeling.

And yet...that is love. But it's not the only kind of love.

My husband shows he loves by taking care of those he loves. He provides for us, does for us. This morning I got up to a blazing fire in the fireplace. What a wonderful thing to wake up to on a cold morning. That was my husband taking care of us, warming our home. He cuts wood to use in that fire place for one reason only...because his family enjoys it. My husband never uses that fireplace when he's home alone.

And so, through his actions, my husband shows us that he loves us.

Still, I find myself asking...what is love? Can we truly ever answer that question and if we do, are we answering in the true meaning of love or are we answering in our human emotions understanding of what love is?

I know someone online, only through social media, that often writes of how they cannot get anyone to take them to the places they want to go. This person writes of how happy they are when their friends take them places, of how loved they are because those people transport them to places, and then complain about how no one seems to care about them when they can't get a ride to somewhere they want to go. Let me just say straight out that I've had to mentally stifle my fingers from writing out a reply many, many times to this person. It gets irritating seeing this person write of how loved they are when someone is doing for them but then complain about how no one cares about them when no one is doing for them.

Their definition of love appears to be based on what others can do for them. And quite honestly I find it hard not to point out to this person, someone that lives across the country from me, someone I've never met and probably never will meet, that those people that love them so much when they are doing for them and don't care anything about them when they aren't doing for them all have lives of their own, that they are already going out of their way for this person.

But for that person, love appears to be what someone else can do for them.

And I find myself wondering...what is love?

Not in the sense of truly not understanding what love is, I do understand that, but in the sense of there has to be a greater definition of what love is than just how we, as fallen people, define it.

I've heard it said that love rules the world, that love is what makes the world go round. And it's true. Love does rule the world, love is what caused the world to go round but it isn't our human understanding of love that rules the world or makes it go round.

All of Scripture tells us the story of God and His love for His people, the people that he chose to be His before He ever made the earth. The earth, and everything on it, is here because of God's love for His people. And so...love rules the world, love is why the earth was made, it goes round because of God's love for His people.

But God's love is nowhere close to how humans define love.

About a week ago I found myself in a conversation with my uncle. He had seen a picture of a five year old Muslim boy being detained in handcuffs at an airport. My uncle was upset over that picture because this was 'God's child' and 'what would Jesus do'. Oh, the conversation that ensued over that. I pointed out that people in a religion that do not believe in the true God are people that live in defiance of God and that this child likely was not 'God's child'. My uncle didn't seem to get it. I would up explaining that God is a holy God and that He loves with a righteous love.

God's love is not the same as our human idea of what love is.

He killed His own son to appease His wrath so that He could love fallen people. Does that sound like a human kind of love? How many people do you know that get so angry with those they love that they must pour their wrath onto one person, wrath that ends in death, so that they can love others? God's love defies our human understanding of what love is.

That is pretty much what I read this morning that got me to thinking about love...again. Except that what I read wasn't close to being worded the way I just worded it. What I read said that we have a man-centered view of love that has people believing from babyhood that if we don't make much of them than we don't love them.

And it's true.

I have a relative that read a parenting book that taught that we must affirm our children's feelings that all their bad behavior is simply a need for more attention. According to that book a parent must pour great emotion and time into their child and when their child is bad they should not discipline and should instead pour even more time and emotion into that child because it simply isn't getting enough attention.

I never read that book but what has brought people to the point of believing that a child simply needs more attention when they are bad and that they shouldn't be disciplined? I grew up being told that a child needs attention from their parents and that if they don't get that attention when they are good then they will be bad because bad attention is better than no attention. I have seen that played out but I can't say a misbehaving kid needs only more attention.

And yet...that seems to be our cultures belief on what love is nowadays. Kids need more attention. Young adults and adults that throw tantrums in public because something doesn't go their way need to be accepted and affirmed in their beliefs.

We are told to love them regardless of their actions or behaviors. We are told we hate them if we tell them they are behaving in a bad way. We are told that we are intolerant if we don't want to put up with their actions or lifestyle.

And we are told all these things in the name of 'love'.

But that isn't how God defines love. Scripture shows us God's love from the first word to the last word. And we are shown the highest level of love. Christ died for those that God gave to Him. He died for His people so that He might save them for Himself.

He is like the treasure at the end of the rainbow or tucked inside a treasure chest. We must seek after Him, living for Him, as He defines life, so that we might experience the greatest love their is. God is love but His love is not the gushy love everyone kind of love that people would have us to believe He is. God loves with a holy love because He also hates with a holy hate and we cannot separate His love from His hate.

God is love.

God is hate.

That is love. That is God's love. He has high standards for people, he expects His people to live a certain way, and there is no compromise on His definition of what love is.

We as people can only comprehend love from our human hearts and minds. Scripture says that our hearts are deceitful above all things. Our hearts must have a higher definition of what love is or we can't define love but by our emotions.

People today have all kinds of mixed views of what love is but mostly they believe that love means accepting everyone along with their actions. That's not love. That's actually hate. Scripture says that a parent that does not discipline their child hates their child. We may not need to discipline the people in the world but if we accept their sins without telling them what those sins will cost them...we hate them.

Love is not defined by our ability to not offend someone. Love is defined by God and what He says love is. People have an amazing way of muddling things up. Adam and Eve did it in the garden of Eden and people have been doing it ever since. We mess everything up.

And now people are trying to base love not on a biblical or even moral standard of what love is but on a sinful standard. To love someone, says our culture, we must love them and their sins, if we do not then we hate them.

Touching their earthly lives

Children are such a wonderful blessing from the Lord that they bring us much joy and enjoyment on earth. They enrich our lives so much and are often our first teachers on learning to deny ourselves and put others first.

Through our children we often learn to enjoy the Lord’s creation. Through them we learn to see the wonder in a caterpillar or in the rippling of water.

And through our children we are given our best chance to live out our faith before others. Our children learn from watching us and our faith…as true, born again Christians…will impact them.

It is a great privilege to be entrusted with such blessings.

What we often forget in our enjoyment and day to day encounters with our children is that we aren’t just raising these little people that bring so much to our earthly lives….we are raising souls that belong to the Lord.

While we pray for our children’s salvation, while we live the examples we want them to follow, we may forget to stop and remember that this child that belongs to us is actually a soul that doesn’t belong to us at all.

Their souls belong only to the Lord and it’s His place to do with them what he wants. We can only guide those souls in whatever small way the Lord will allow us.

I am a homeschooling mother. Have…in fact…homeschooled my children since before they were old enough to need any form of ‘school’. In the homeschool world there is great stock placed in curriculum. There are conventions where all manner of it are displayed. You can order magazines about it, get catalogs delivered to your door that can eat up hours and hours of your days. There are hundreds if not thousands of websites offering everything from single subjects to all-inclusive curriculums. There are ‘Christian’ curriculums, secular curriculums, and more. You name it if you want to teach it to your child you can probably find it.

There are whole models of education formed around certain ideas of how you should teach your children. And there are complete models formed around the idea that you can’t teach your child, that children learn when they are ready and not before no matter what…or how much…you pump into them.

Some families are ‘homeschoolers’. That is their identity. It’s who they are and it describes everything about how they live their lives, much the way other people describe being ‘doctors’ or ‘world travelers’. It is…quite simply…who they are. And they take pride in who they are.

There are many families among the homeschool world that homeschool for the sole purpose of being able to pump ‘Christian’ content into their children. They believe that it is their place to be the religious instruction for their children and that that should include their children’s education.

Let me say…I agree with that…to a point. I do believe that as parents we have a responsibility to teach our children of our beliefs, to live out those beliefs to them, and to give them the gospel.

I don’t however believe that we can instruct our children into salvation…which is basically what some among the homeschool world are attempting to do.

Being entrusted with children…with souls…by the Lord is a privilege that comes with the added privilege of being able to live out our faith in front of our children and the ability to give them the gospel as we will probably never be able to give it to anyone else. Part of that privilege is the joy of watching our children grow and learn.

I have met many a homeschooling parent and curriculum provider that believed that getting ‘Christian’ beliefs into the ‘Christian’ child was the single most important purpose of home educating them.

The trouble with this philosophy is that it completely misses the Biblical teaching that salvation is of the Lord and that we can’t work our way into it.

If we could…if we had to…if our children’s salvation rested in our hands and in how much of the Scriptures we could get into their hearts…we would fail. Miserably.

Because salvation rests in the Lords hands alone. He is the only one that can save our children and He will do so at His will regardless of what we do or do not do.

The vessels of God’s mercy (Romans 9:22-23) are prepared for eternal glory by the Lord and they are prepared according to the plan He has in place for them. When the time is right the Lord will draw (John 6:44) or more accurately according to the Greek text…draw…their hearts and souls to Him.

What has gone into their hearts and minds prior to that moment is only what was placed in their lives so that the Lord could get them to the place where He would save them.

If it was required of us…as parents…to put everything into our children that would save them…we would fail. We simply cannot put the love of Christ into their hearts so that they will love Him above all else. Sin lives in their hearts from birth and it will take root and grow despite our best efforts to weed it out.

This sin kills our children’s hearts so much so that they are dead in sins. Only the Lord can give them life from those sins and it’s His will to do so or not and there’s nothing that we…or they…can do to affect that. While our children are dead in their sins they are in complete darkness, lost to their sins, so much so that the darkness they live in will keep them from Christ…aside from a basic head knowledge that will allow them to profess a belief that does not reach their hearts.

That is the best condition that we can hope to ‘impart’ to them through anything that we…or they…do. Everything else…salvation…is in the Lord’s hands. It’s a gift that he pours out into those that He chooses to receive it. A gift is something that is freely given, not something we work to earn.

The educating of our children in the ways of the Lord may give them a head knowledge, it may restrain them in their sins, but it will not give them salvation.

Oh, but if we could. How great it would be to focus all of our earthly time and attention on our children’s souls and know that we were giving them their very salvation.

I would gladly spend every hour of every day working the Truth of Christ into my children’s hearts if only it would save them.

But Scripture tells us that isn’t the way salvation works and that nothing I do will save my children. The good news in that is that nothing I do…no failure on my part… will cast them into hell either.

They came into this world souls that belong to the Lord, to be used for His purpose…whatever that may be…and they will go out of this world the same way.

I can only touch their earthly lives to the extent the Lord allows me to do so.

 

Protecting them

I’ve spent every year of my parenting experience doing the best I can to protect my children from the bad in this world. There were things I didn’t realize were bad early in my parenting days and there were things that I saw as bad that may not have been as bad as I thought they were at the time. Like most parents I did the best I could at each stage of raising each of my children.

Recently I’ve had some conversations with my teenage daughter that has made me wonder if all the protecting was as good as I thought it was. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t regret keeping them safe from the evils of this world, whether those evils were in real life or entertainment.

In the Christian homeschool world there are many different ideas of the right way to raise and educate children. Among ‘Christian’ families there seems to be two big differences though. There are those that believe in protecting their children from everything and those that believe in exposing their children to everything and then discussing those exposures. I always fell into the ‘protect them at all costs’ side.

There’s just something to be said for protecting the innocence of children. I’m not talking about innocence in the Lord’s eyes, that doesn’t exist, I’m talking about innocent to so many of the world’s ways. There are so many evils in this world that they must deal with in one capacity or another eventually, it just seems best to delay that as long as possible.

The trouble with that plan only recently became apparent to me. I still think it’s a good plan, a good idea. Our children need to be protected from all manner of evil. The trouble is…evil lives within their hearts. Sooner or later the desire to fulfill their own interests and longings will rear its head. Not only that but they will one day have to navigate this world on their own. For some children that day comes sooner than it does for others.

As much as I have protected my children from things I didn’t want them exposed to I soon discovered that the world encroached whether I wanted it to or not. Although I must admit that some of that encroachment was my own fault.

My daughters took a liking to fancy, very expensive, jeans after I took them to a ‘church’ building where that kind of jeans were the popular thing…everyone from babies to elderly women were wearing them. Was it any wonder my children wanted them?

The thing I struggle with now is where is the line between our beliefs and their desires? We can’t know ahead of time how something will affect them. I’m strong enough in my faith to be exposed to anything and walk away with my faith intact. I may have scars from what I saw or experienced but my faith will stand fast no matter what I’m exposed to. My children don’t have that.

The faith they have is superficial. It’s a head knowledge, a vocalization. It isn’t soul deep, it doesn’t consume their heart and mind.

And so they are like a leaf blowing in the wind. They may know what kind of leaf they are but what’s to stop them from landing in the pond instead of the yard? What’s to keep them from blowing into the manure pile instead of landing on the porch?

Without the complete and total faith that comes with regeneration…their faith can only keep them so safe. Their hearts long for something they don’t have and so they search for something to fill that longing. It may be hobbies, it may be the entertainment industry, it may even be ‘church’ but the reality is…

Unless Christ fills that void the longing will remain.

Something will consume them whether it’s Christ or things of the world.

I once spoke with someone that told me we can make our children believe what we want them too. This person’s oldest child was seven years old. My oldest was in the teen years. I tried explaining that we can’t force our children to believe. This person didn’t agree. I switched tactics, told them we can make them share our beliefs when they’re little but sooner or latter they must believe on their own. That seemed to sink in but only so far. I truly think that person believed that if we just force our children to believe as we do that we can make them share that belief.

No.

All we can do is make them express belief with their mouths. True belief is from the Lord and He’s the only One that can make them believe.

By the same token we can’t make them hate the sins of this world. All we can do is lay the foundation for telling them that those sins are wrong, why they’re wrong. Then sooner or later we have to get out of the way to let them experience the pain of the world for themselves.

Protecting them can only be taken so far.

No matter how much we may want to spend their lives keeping them from the evil of this world. And keeping the evil far away from them.

I think often of the 1800’s and how life was like in those days. I have a friend that has told me many times of how much she likes the 1800’s. She thinks of the simplicity of that time, of how they lived without all the distractions we live with, of how they were freer to focus on Christ. I can see what she means when she speaks of those times but for me when I think of that time period what I think of is how many of the evils were kept in check. Of how much of society didn’t accept the evil that people in our time accept. Of how nice it would be to be able to walk through town without seeing the majority of everyone’s bodies. Of how nice it would be not to hear so many bad words. Of how nice it would be to see a time when wickedness wasn’t given quite so much freedom.

I know the evil of men’s hearts was there even as it was restrained. I know that awful things happened in those days too. But I also know it was reined in at least a little.

And now…as I continue to have conversations with my teenage daughter…as I continue to see not only our lives but the world through her eyes. I am forced to ask myself how much protecting we can do.

As I grow a tiny baby within my body…I prepare a teenage daughter for the world.

As I think of the innocence this baby has of all the world’s ways…I must wonder if I have given my daughter the tools to face the world.

It’s a fine line that must be walked between keeping the evils from them and preparing them to one day live in those evils.

Have I walked that line?

Or did I fall off one side or the other?

Our children watch

I recently wrote about how our lives are a story being written in the book of our life and how those stories create the people that our children become (titled ‘The book we’re writing’). When I sat down to write that I had an idea of what I wanted to write and discovered that my thoughts went in sort of the right direction but that they took a turn I hadn’t even thought of. Because that happened I wish to write once again on the same topic but with the purpose of writing what I intended to write last time.

Funny how as I write sometimes I write exactly what I intended to, sometimes I had no thought in mind and I watch as the words take shape on the computer, and sometimes everything I planned to write gets pushed aside to write something I hadn’t even thought of.

When I sat down to write that last post I wanted to write about books…I did that…but I had a different point I wanted to make.

You see, I own many books, some I read and some I know I will never read again. My children have more books than I’d ever want to count. Those books have played a role in our lives and may continue to play a role in them.

The most valuable book I own is the Bible…and I own many of those. Within the pages of the Bible is not only the story of the world, not only the story of my Lord, not only the story of God’s people, but within those pages is the story of me. It holds the story of my family, the story of my marriage, the story of my children. We may not be mentioned by name but we are mentioned nonetheless. We are there in the pages, there in the words spoken and written.

It is within the pages of that Book that I find the meaning for my life, I find the reason for my life being written the way it was.

But it isn’t to that Book that my thoughts want to turn to today. As important as it is…my thoughts want to turn to the shelves of children’s book we have in our home. I think of the stories on the pages of those books. I think of the toddler books with the short sentences and intriguing pictures, I think of the chapter books with the ability to captivate my children.

And as I think of those books I also think of my children. A while back I wrote what I titled ‘Raising souls’. In it I spoke of how it took me many children and lots of years to realize that I’m not just raising little people that carry my heart with them everywhere they go but that I’m raising souls for the Lord. No matter what their eventual place with Christ is…they are souls with a purpose designed by the Lord. They have a purpose to fulfill. What that purpose is I may never know but they have one.

And it’s here in this writing and in my thoughts and heart where the words I wrote in ‘The book we’re writing’ and the words I wrote in ‘Raising souls’ meet and converge. It’s in my thoughts and here in my words as I write where those two different ideas come together to form one.

You see as I think of those many children’s books we have in our possession I think of the story my children see and learn from with each book. And then I think of the souls that my children are, the foundation that is laid in their lives with everything they do, with everything they encounter, and those thoughts become the foundation for much bigger thoughts that flow through my mind and heart.

You see we tend to see movies and books as being stories we see and listen to. Whether we like them or not we all know that those things are stories. Even the true stories are labeled as ‘stories’.

My grandmother spent many hours telling me about her life. They were the stories of my grandmother’s life. She told me stories about her parents and siblings. She told me about my mother when she was a child. She told me about life during the depression.

She told me stories of her life that transported me into the world as my grandmother knew it.

As a child I used to ask my grandpa to tell me about how he moved cross country in a covered wagon. That story fascinated me. My grandpa wasn’t a good story teller. He never made it sound like a story, never embellished it, never made it exciting or adventurous, he simply told me the facts and those facts were more than enough to captivate me with the story of how grandpa traveled in a covered wagon.

Now my children ask me to tell them stories of my childhood, they ask me to tell them stories of when they were little. Last night at midnight I was up with my five year old and for whatever reason I told him that when I was a girl we didn’t have computers, cell phones, ereaders… His little eyes grew huge and the shock on his face was clear to see.

My grandparents took me to times that I couldn’t really imagine as they told me the stories of their lives….and I took my son to the same kind of time. He’s never known life without computers, cell phones, and the many other modern technologies. He knows how to do things with electronics that I didn’t learn until I was grown.

The stories of our lives hold as much interest for our children as do the stories written in the pages of books. When my oldest was little I discovered a good amount of the history of my ancestors…enough to know who they were and where they came from all the way back to 1700. Because I knew that when my daughter would ask for a story I would tell her the story of our family. She loved it and asked me to tell her that story over and over. So much so that I eventually wrote it down in a way that she could understand and had it bound into a book that she could hold and read for herself. She spent many hours reading that book.

Within its pages was 11 generations of our family’s stories. They were short, giving only basic details…in most cases because basic details were all I knew...but she didn’t care. She was simply captivated and amazed by what wasn’t even a well written story. I didn’t need to write it in the perfect style required by publishers, I didn’t need to meet the expectations of my reader, because my targeted audience was so fascinated with the story I was writing that she willingly overlooked the bad writing.

Our children are fascinated by our lives. They watch the story of our lives unfold before them whether we realize it or not. I’ve heard many times that we shouldn’t tell our children to live one way while we’re in the midst of living another way, that actions speak louder than words, that they’ll follow what they see us doing and not what they hear us saying.

We are living out before them a story that they read every single day. It is a story that is more powerful than any they will ever read in a book, it is a story that will shape and mold who they are, it is a story they will remember long after we are no longer with them.

They may or may not choose to emulate the story they watch us live but it is a story that shapes their ideas and personalities nonetheless.

It’s said that girls base their ideas of how a man should treat them based on how they watch their dad treat their mother. Those are the expectations that our daughters will take with them into their future and into their marriages. They will get those expectations from the pages of the story their parents live out before them.

Our son’s will learn how to treat women, how to treat their future wives and children, based off how they see their dad treat their mother and siblings.

Years ago we had neighbors where the husband was abusive toward his wife. This couple had four children, two girls and two boys. When we met them their children ranged in age from about 4 to about 10. Their oldest daughter used to ride her bike up and down the road a good deal of the time she was home. She began to stop in front of our house and just watch us. She didn’t seem to want to come into the yard, didn’t speak to us at first. She just sat and watched us as we came and went. We would speak to her but in the beginning she said little more than hi to us. In time she came into the yard. It wasn’t long after that before she was a regular in our home. She spent the night, she went to town with us, she went to theme parks with us. Most nights she ate dinner with us.

Her younger sister would come with her from time to time but this little girl came pretty much every day and she stayed all day. It took a while before we understood what was happening. Home wasn’t a safe place for her and so she found somewhere that was safe. In time her mother admitted what was going on at home, told us of how her husband beat her on a regular basis.

This little girl watched the story of her parents being unfolded before her and it was, for her, a story of fear and anger. From the road she would sit and watch our family, hardly speaking to us, she watched our story and eventually chose to become a part of it...so much so that it was almost as if she was one of our own.

This little girl was the oldest of the four children in her family. Her sister would sometimes come to our house and in time her brothers did too. This little girl seemed to seek the kind of family we had, the kind of life that we had. She would play baby dolls for hours, she played with our infant daughter as if she was her baby. Her sister, when she came, had no interest in playing, instead she wanted to go through everything, she pulled all the books off the bookshelf saying that she wanted to organize it but never did anything more than make a huge mess before leaving, she emptied toy boxes for the same reason and never did anything more than leave the mess behind.

In those two girls was such a difference in what they were seeking, in how they were dealing with the stress of what the story in their home was. One craved not just the normal but nurturing, the other created chaos.

And the boys…they had learned at their daddy’s knee. They were mean and aggressive to the girls. Expressions often rested on their little faces that should never have been there. Even though they were younger than their sisters it was clear to see that their opinions of their sisters mirrored their dad’s attitudes toward their mother. And it wasn’t just their sisters that received this treatment. Our girls received it, the other girls in the neighborhood received it. I received it. The boys kept it in check with me and other teenage and adult females…they were only 4 and 6 at the time…but it was unleashed toward younger girls.

These children had been affected…influenced…by the story they saw being written between their parents.

They aren’t the only children that I have seen this effect in. They aren’t the only children that sought the safety of our home when theirs wasn’t a safe or good place to be. I have a sister that is much younger than I am. So much so that she was in her mid-teen years when I was raising children. She’s so much younger than I am that she’s closer to my oldest child’s age than my own. This sister spent a good deal of time in our home, even living with us. I was more of a second mother to her than a sister. When she was about 16 she had a boyfriend that loved to come to our house. He would come to see her and he would stay all day or as long as we would let him…there were days he had to be told that it was late and we needed to go to bed. Each time he left he did so reluctantly.

In time he admitted to us that his mother and sister were both alcoholics and that there was rarely any food in his house. He admitted to living on crackers and only had them because he bought them himself and kept them hidden so he’d have them.

In all his time at our house he found his place among us. He became something of a big brother to the children, he helped with things around the house the best way he could.

Eventually he and my sister split up. Long after the end of their relationship we saw this boy in town and he admitted to driving past our house on a regular basis just to see it and know that we were still there.

This teenage boy was a product of the story that his mother, his only parent, and his sister wrote for him. Tragically, not long after he told us how he would drive by just to see our house and maybe catch a glimpse of us, he was killed in a car accident. The accident happened about a year after he and my sister split up. The cause of the accident was his own choices. He was driving drunk, crossed the line and hit a diesel head on.

That boy left a mark on my life as I left one on his. His home life was such that he sought the security, the love, the normalness of our home long after he no longer visited us. When I learned of his death I was shocked. Not so much because it happened but because I remembered having him in our home, remembered the impact we had on his life. For a little while he watched a different story unfold and it was one he longed for until the night he died.

I’ve thought many times of that boy. Thought of how he missed something vital in his life to the point that when he found it in our home he longed for it. I’ve thought of how that boy, so close to being a man, knew that kind of life only for the short time he was at our home.

Now as I think of him, as I think of the choices he made that cost him his life. I see it from two sides…the earthly and the spiritual. I can look at that boy’s life through the faith I hold and know that his time on earth had come to an end, his choices were only the method the Lord used to end his days on earth. He had fulfilled the purpose the Lord had for him. His days had reached their end.

 But I can see it from the earthly also…I can see how the life his family lived affected him. I can see how their choices taught him to live in a way that resulted in the final choices he made that last night of his life. I can see how the story his family lived out before him set the foundation for what he became not only that last night but also during the time he was seeking something from us that he wasn’t getting at home. I can see how the story of his life, how the story he saw written before him on a daily basis played a major role in setting the foundation for the choices he wound up making. This was the life he was placed in, it was where the Lord put him. The story his family lived out before him set the tone for his short life.

And he watched the story from the day he was born.

They say the first three years of a child’s life are their formative years. Ideas and personality will be settled in them in those first years that will last the rest of their life. As a mother I have watched my children grow through those formative years. ‘They’ may be right about those first three years but all of childhood is formative years. They are little sponges that observe and learn based on what they see and experience. They watch the story of their parent’s life and follow the path they see set out before them.

I’m not saying that if real Christian parents live out Scripture before them that those children will be saved because they saw it. Only the Lord can save them and he will do so or not according to His will. Even the story that our children see before them are used for the Lord’s purposes…whatever they may be.

I don’t know why it was that for a while we were the safe place for our neighbor’s daughter. I don’t know what purpose there was in that. Was she in our lives so she could be an influence to us or so we could influence her? I’ll never know.

I don’t know why my sister’s boyfriend not only passed through our life but became so attached to us. Was it for his good, to help in the purpose of his life, or was it for ours? Was he there to teach us something or were we there to help him in the purpose that was soon to be fulfilled in his life? I’ll never know.

All I know is that, as I look back on the lives of those two young people who found security and love within the walls of our home, they were there for a reason. For a time they were placed in our life. And then they were taken out of our life. Our time in each others stories had come to an end. One chapter ended and a new one began. But for that time we were written into the story of each other’s lives. And the impact we made on each other was long lasting.

Our children watch our story unfold and get lived out the same way those two children watched their parents stories. Our children are effected by the way we live our life, by the things we do, by the things we believe, by the things we talk about, by how we interact with them.

As our children begin stories of their own, when they are still major characters in the daily life of our own story, they will take with them the memories and influence of the story we lived out before them. No matter how they eventually live out their own story they will always carry ours with them.

What story are we writing on the hearts, minds, and lives of our children?

 

The book we're writing.

When I was about 11 years old I discovered something amazing…to me anyway. I discovered books. I had always had picture books and had enjoyed them but it wasn’t until around age 11 that I discovered chapter books.

In the pages of those books I learned something that I had never known before. I could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.

The stories on those black and white pages transformed my life from what it was at the time to just about anything I wanted it to be. I lived on the prairie in pioneer times, dressed in long skirts and lived without modern technologies. I suffered through the depression. I loved and lost. Explored caves, searched for buried treasure, survived kidnappings and time traveled.

Every time I opened a new book…I opened a new life.

At the time my love of books was a cross between entertainment and escape. Books helped me pass many hours in the years when I lived between childhood and the adult world. They gave me something to do when I wouldn’t have had anything to do. They were easy to carry anywhere I went and were always there when I needed them. But they also gave me an escape when I needed one. Illnesses that left me feeling awful were a little easier to get through when I could focus on the joys and trials of someone else’s life. Situations I found myself in that were too difficult to bear became easier when I escaped my life through the pages of a book.

And so books became my best friend.

I spent many, many hours with those friends.

Now, years and years after first discovering books, I still enjoy them. There’s something about reading about others, whether real or fictional, that can’t be found outside the pages of a book. Today I find it much harder to enjoy a book, not because the stories in them aren’t as good as the ones I remember from childhood but because I now know that so many of those stories go against my Lord.

As a child I didn’t care if a book contained time travel or magic. I didn’t care if it was about murder or other sin. I was simply looking for a story that could not only hold my attention but one that could transport me from my world to the world that existed only in the pages of that book. Now I have a higher standard.

In the pages of a book I now know that there’s so much more being played out than just what’s happening in the story. Depending on what the book is about and whether it was written based on Biblical principles comes through within only a few pages. Some books glorify sin, some degrade my Lord, others teach falsehoods while claiming to be Biblical, and a few speak truth. That happens in both fiction and nonfiction.

And what most people don’t know is that within the pages of a book, no matter what the story is about, the author’s views on everything in life is slowly being fed into us through tiny bite sized pieces.

There are books that are considered classics, books that most children have encountered at some point in their lives, whose authors dabbled in the occult. And once a person knows that it becomes easy to see it in the pages of the story. But you have to know it to really see it or else you have to be reading the book with a very discerning eye.

No child is going to read with that kind of discernment. Most adults don’t read that way. A book is seen as entertainment, something to pass the time. They can’t do any harm. Or so many believe.

But stories aren’t just written on the pages of a book. Those subtle influences aren’t penned only in the words portrayed in things of entertainment.

Stories are written every day, in every person’s life. They’re written in our minds and hearts with everyone we know. Each encounter we have with another person writes a story on our life. Some may be fleeting like the short picture books that passed through our hands when we were children, they may leave little or no impression. Others are long sagas with many chapters and hundreds of pages.

What may seem to be an innocent encounter with another person may indeed form ideas and opinions in our minds and hearts that will take root for all of our earthly life.

Our children are particularly susceptible to having their stories altered by encounters with other people and with each experience.

As a homeschooler I have encountered many different ideas on how to raise children, on how to bring them up in the Christian faith, on what to let them experience and encounter. There are those among the Christian homeschool world that believe that a child should never encounter anything that doesn’t teach them from a Christian perspective and there are those that believe children should be exposed to as much of the world as possible so that they know what it’s all about-in those that believe that way some will counter everything their child encounters with discussions on what they as a family believe and others let their children form their own ideas and opinions without trying to influence them.

As a Christian it has become difficult for me to find books that I feel are okay for me to read. It’s even harder to find books that I feel comfortable letting my children read. I know that the Lord will either save my children or not in His time and that there isn’t a book out there that will keep that from happening but I also know that the things we experience in life help set our foundation for what we will become. I have a responsibility to my children and to my Lord to help set the right kind of foundation for my children.

There were many years in my parenting life that I didn’t know that. Many years passed where we chose what came into our lives based on a much looser idea of what was okay and what wasn’t. I remember spending many, many hours reading chapter books to my oldest when she was too young to read them herself. Some of her favorite ones were a series about kids that time traveled with the help of a magician.

Yesterday that same daughter told me how her favorite books have always been the science fiction type with time travel, fairies, and other type situations.

Today as I think back on the many hours we spent with that type of books, as I remember the movies I let her watch and the play I encouraged, I must also think of the foundation we laid with each page we turned, with each movie we sat through, with the fairy houses I helped build and the toys I bought for her. The Lord used all of that in both her life and mine. He used it in the lives of each person in our family and I’m only now reaching the midpoint of the story. I’m still reading the book that is our life. I can’t see the end of the story, I can’t flip ahead to read the last page or the last chapter.

But I can see the influence those stories, movies, and play have had in my children’s lives long after the time when we stopped letting them through our front door. I see them when my children reminisce about the books and movies we once read, when they talk about the things they used to play. I see them in the smiles those memories bring.

And I see the failures of the ideas I wrote into our story when I didn’t yet know I was writing a story and I see the failures I write today when I do know that each day is another page in our story, when each moment is another sentence in our book.

And there is no delete button.

I can’t erase something once it’s been placed into the pages of the book of our life. Once a character comes into our story they are there forever whether they enter our story as real life people, fictional characters in books or movies, or ideas imparted through someone else. They are all there increasing the word count in the story that is our life, lengthening the pages of our book, adding to the story unfolding before our eyes.

As a Christian that now sees there’s a greater story going on than the story within my life, that now understands there’s a Book that was written that I never need to worry about the influence it has on my children, I find myself at odds with my thoughts sometimes.

I must wonder what in the story of our lives is building the foundation I want to put under my children and what is being written into my children’s lives that I may be opposed to but that the Lord has put there for their greater good.

I feel the need to protect them from all that goes against my beliefs, from all that might lead them astray, but today…so close to the discussion I had with my daughter yesterday….I must also wonder about the foundation that has already been laid.

And how that foundation has written words into the book that is my child’s life.

If our family story is a book then we are all characters in a continuing saga that will play out for many years to come, Lord willing. We are a series of books in which the characters are the same but the stories must eventually separate. We overlap because we have been given to each other for a time and our stories are all one but as our children grow they must, in time, move into their own books. Their stories must become their own and not merely a spot within the pages of the story of their parents lives.

What did they learn while they were in our book? What did they learn from the influence of the story we write in our own lives? What have we taught them through the encounters we have allowed them to have?

Was our story written based on Scripture? Can we hand them over to their own stories, to their own books, knowing that we have shown them, guided them, in the way that they should go or will we watch with bated breath as they jump from the pages of our book into the blank pages of their own without the proper safety net beneath them?

What are we writing on the hearts of our children while we have them within the pages of our life?

Even

I recently wrote a post titled gone. It was on the subject of abortion, a subject that has horrified me since the moment I first learned of it. Even as a child I couldn’t fathom the idea of anyone killing their baby. I still can’t. I’ve heard their reasoning, heard their excuses, heard the terms and explanations but nothing said or explained can ever justify the killing of innocent babies that have yet to even take a breath.

After the loss of our baby a few months ago my husband and I talked of that very thing. While we were grieving for our baby, mothers were killing theirs. While we were hurting over the loss of a baby we very much wanted, mothers were destroying babies. My husband said something to the effect of how what appears to be trash to one person is a treasure to another. I wish I could remember exactly how he worded it but I can’t. What I do remember is the feelings in both of us as we thought on that. In my pain, just days after losing our baby, I would have gladly embraced and loved one or many of those babies whose mothers didn’t want them.

Today, as I once again carry a precious baby within me, I think of that. I think of how my husband said what is trash to one person is a treasure to another. When I took a test to confirm this pregnancy I was thrilled to see that positive line, thrilled to know I carried our child within me, thrilled to know that we had been blessed, once again, to bring a child into this world. Even as fear for the life of this child filled my mind and heart…I was thrilled. Even as I prayed to be allowed to keep this one…I was thrilled. Even as I knew there is a chance I may only be allowed to keep this baby a short while…I was thrilled. Even as I knew that I may wind up experiencing deep pain…I was thrilled.

I was thrilled.

I am thrilled.

And as I think of this precious baby growing within me, I also think of the many precious babies that are seen as something to be gotten rid of. Even as I experience the joy of carrying my child, I think of those whose mothers will choose to kill them.

Yesterday marked the three month mark since we lost our precious baby. I knew of the existence of the baby now growing within me before we reached that three month mark. Even as I thought of how that baby would be growing and developing inside me had it lived…this baby had begun to grow. Even as I thought of how I would be feeling that baby move inside me…this baby was taking hold, beginning to form. Even as I thought of how I would be showing by now...this baby was barely beginning to grow.

I haven’t forgotten that baby. It lives in my heart even as I go on with life. And I’m reminded as that life unfolds with me in the midst of it that the Lord has a plan for my life that is beyond my control.

There’s nothing that makes that more obvious than to remember the baby I wanted so much, the baby my heart still wants, and to think of the baby that now lives within me, the baby I want so much, the baby I love. When I think of those two babies, both wanted so much, both loved, I’m forced to admit that I never could have had both of them. For this baby I now carry to live, my womb had to be empty when it needed it. For this baby to live, I had to lose that one.

The Lord knew that even as I anticipated the life of the baby I so recently carried and lost. He knew that He would be taking it away and would soon give me another baby. He knew…and He had a plan. Even as I made plans for the baby I carried within me…He knew I would soon lose it. Even as I made plans for one baby…He knew it would fulfill its purpose long before I could hold it in my arms.

Today as I treasure the life that grows within me…the Lord has a plan for both me and my baby. He has a plan for my husband. He has a plan for our children. He has a plan for everyone that this baby will touch.

I don’t understand what plan the baby I so recently lost fulfilled but I know it did. And I know that this baby has a plan to fulfill even as I treasure its existence. Even as I hold tight to the knowledge that this precious life grows within me I know that the Lord has a plan for both of us.

Whether I’m given days or decades with this baby my Lord’s plan will be fulfilled in both our lives.

And I’m blessed to have even a second to love this precious baby.

A new blessing

Three months ago today I lost a baby we were expecting. That baby died long before it had a chance to live outside my womb. It was a trying and painful time for me, my husband and our family. It was also an eye opening experience for me. There have been many times I have spoken with someone that has lost an unborn baby or child and all I could say was I can only imagine your pain. Now I do much more than imagine the pain…I remember it. I also remember the sweet time I cradled my baby within my body and how blessed I was to be that baby’s mother no matter the length of time.

Recently I discovered that I am once again expecting. This baby wasn’t a surprise and it’s very much wanted. I do, however, find that this baby has created a feeling in me I’ve never known in relation to a pregnancy before…fear.

Hard as I try to not be anxious my mother’s heart still fears for the tiny life growing within me. I want so badly to carry this baby to term, to hold it in my arms, to give it a name, to see its features, to watch it grow into all the Lord has in store for it.

But even as I want all of those things I am reminded that we aren’t promised tomorrow. That we are to focus on today and let tomorrow take care of itself. And so I turn my fears into prayers, I petition my Lord on behalf of the precious life I carry. And I treasure every moment I’m given with this baby, be it days or decades.

When I was first beginning the loss of my last baby the midwife told me to guard my heart and I knew that that I never could, that I must love my baby for every second I had with it. I will do nothing different with this little one. I have known people that chose not to reveal their pregnancies until they were past the three month mark so that they didn’t have to make any explanations if they lost the baby. I’ve known people that didn’t reveal their pregnancy until they’d had their amniocentesis, presumably so that they knew the baby was healthy before they disclosed its existence. I’m not one of those people. I won’t hide my precious baby until I’m sure I won’t have to go through the inconvenience and the pain of disclosing a loss should it happen.

For however long we have this baby it has been given to us by the Lord. It deserves to be celebrated and enjoyed. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

When my fears rear their ugly head I hope I remember to always turn them into prayers, for fear serves no purpose but prayer and faith do. And as I pray for my child I pray also that the Lord will keep me in prayer and not in fear as I enjoy this precious baby that he has blessed us with.

 

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?