Overwhelmed by My Blessings: Encouragement for Moms (Part 3)ናሙና

When you have lots of children, you have opportunity to have do-overs, thank God. Our poor oldest kids had a mom who focused on teaching them all the things not to do. Behavior modification. I naively believed that if I taught them the right things, and said it often enough, they wouldn’t choose to do wrong things. Crazy, I know now.

I was raising my kids to be like me. Mirrors, reflecting what I taught them. It didn’t go well, as they pushed back against the rules and restrictions that were placed for right living.

As God worked in my own heart, I began to see that life isn’t about what we don’t do, but it’s about who He is in us. Our heart condition. As my relationship with Christ became more and more about freedom, life and position with Him, my teaching changed too.

I began to teach them to be lights, not mirrors. They were created in His image, not mine. The glory they could reflect was His---light, life, and love! Not my misguided idea of good behavior.

My outlook was changed from being concerned with right behavior to one of our standing, a relationship with a loving and living Christ. This distinction helped me to know that my teaching was not to be focused on staying away from pornography, drugs, alcohol, swearing, deceit, sexual promiscuity, etc., although we talked about those things. Rather, we focused on the consequences of deliberate independence from God, sin that would harm that relationship, and the joy and freedom that come from a loving relationship with a living God.

This mind shift also brought me relief and freedom, knowing that I didn’t have the responsibility of raising shiny mirror children, but a responsibility to direct them toward a relationship with the giver of Life. They had the opportunity to be light-bearers. Their choice.

I have good news for you. They have all chosen to be lights, not mirrors. Take a deep breath, mama, and show your children the love that comes from knowing Jesus. They will eventually want that for themselves.

If you didn’t have the chance to change your parenting along the way, it’s never too late to apologize to your children for what you didn’t know. It just might open the door to some healing conversations.

Father, I admit this is a tough thing for me to consider. I don’t want my children to go through hard things, especially some of the things I chose when I was younger. I pray that you give me wisdom to know what boundaries to put in place, but mostly for the wisdom to teach your love and life to my children. I pray that they choose you, and I pray that my example to them will be one of reflecting your glory. May I raise Light-bearers and not mirrors of myself.