Our children are not an extension of who we are. It certainly feels like they are, doesn't it? Flesh of our flesh. Blood of our blood.** It absolutely feels like my heart exists outside my body since becoming a mother. I have experienced emotion on enormous scale as I have lived through their successes, failures, and sufferings. But. My children are not part of me. They are their own people.
I love them with a reckless, all-consuming love. The crazy kind. A love that beats heavy in my chest. A love that leaves no doubt in my mind that I would willingly die for them - and just as certainly kill for them if ever necessary to protect them. Or if someone shamed them in my presence. You know, either way.
A love that leads me to read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, and pray all the prayers. A mother's love is intense. It's powerful. It's deeply rooted in our very nature as nurtures. It should be the kind of love that completely undoes us while also holding us together. Even as I write these words, they aren't doing justice to the depth of passion and resolve with which a mother loves her babies. But, mostly likely, I don't need to tell you - you already know.
Sometimes that well-intentioned and oh-so-beautiful love leads us to wrong understanding of our relationship with our children. I am just coming to realize this as my oldest approaches three and a half years old and my youngest is nearly two. I find that when I am misunderstanding our relationship it makes life very difficult for me and them the same.
What could there possibly be to misunderstand? Obviously I am their mother. I am meant to nurture them mind, body, and soul: meet physical needs, teach them, and shepherd their hearts. Agreed. Most assuredly, all those things are true.
You know what our relationship is NOT? My children are an extension of who I am, and their successes and failures are determined, or at least greatly influenced, by my successes, failures, and efforts as their mother.
No.
This is not the case.
This is a very difficult concept to grasp. It feels like a cop out. It feels like letting myself off the hook. It feels like I'm allowing myself to wash my hands of the responsibility I have to direct them and shape them into acceptable citizens (at the least) and awesome men of God with a heart for service that walk humbly, seek justice, and love mercy (at best). Certainly I am responsible for how they turn out. I am their mother, after all.
But do you know what I'm realizing more and more? I'm not. That's not my responsibility. All of that is the work of the Holy Spirit. I would be a better mother to those boys if I accepted this truth on a moment to moment basis throughout each day.
You see, it's not a cop out... it's the freeing truth. A truth that frees me AND those sweet souls from my crushing expectations. Why is the truth so hard to accept when it gives us a break? We can take a hard truth. Just give it to us straight, and we can handle it. Give us something free - something to ease the burden, and we feel like we can't accept it.
Wanna know what I'm learning? It's not strong to hold impossibly high standards for yourself or your kids. Wanna know what it is? Destructive. Short-sighted. Self-absorbed. Wait for it... sinful.
The idea that we somehow are responsible for the choices our children make and that those choices -good or bad- are a direct reflection on who we are as individuals is wrong. I was born sinful, and I will die sinful. My children share the same fate. By the grace of Jesus - the Holy Spirit has done a saving work in my heart, and I am now justified by faith and am being continually sanctified. I pray the same experience for my children. But that journey - the journey of sin, faith, justification, and sanctification is ultimately a personal one. Of course we come along each other; of course we bear each others' burdens - but we each stand before the throne of God alone in the end.
Getting too big picture - lets zoom back in on the here and now of the terribly terrifying and equally wonderful beyond description world of toddlerhood. Heaven help us.
Yesterday my oldest was truly terrible to me. Hitting. Kicking. Tantruming. Yelling. Spitting. Pushing. Defying. All of it was extremely defeating. I wasn't my best self by the end of the day. I fell asleep wondering how I had failed him so badly. How could a child of mine display such heinous behavior? I read the books. I pray the prayers. I listen to the podcasts. I TRY... like, really, really, try. Maybe I've raised my voice too much. Maybe I've spanked too much... too hard... not enough... not in the right spirit... didn't have the right words... favored his brother too much... fed him too much sugar... let him watch too much TV... It's exhausting to bear the burden of another person's sinful (and sometimes just developmentally appropriate immaturity) choices. I'm saying, leave it to the Savior.
When my child hits another child at school and gets written up... that is not a reflection on me as a person, and it is not my fault as a parent. Do I talk to him about it? Do I discipline him? Do we talk all the time about "nice hands" while I run his hand on my cheek? Yes... Lord knows I do. But....
Now all you mamas out there lean in and listen up...
I cannot be the mom those precious children deserve and I so DESPERATELY need myself to be if I'm all-consumed by whether or not all my hard work is showing in the choices they make in order to reflect well on me and feel like I am enough.
Did you hear that? How about I break it down.
1. I am an image-bearer of the Almighty God.
2. Jesus is my righteousness.
3. When God looks at me, He sees the perfection of Jesus... not Jesus' plus one, but the actually righteousness of Jesus.
4. My children are sinful, and they make sinful choices.
5. If I can accept that I am not the Holy Spirit, I can focus on how God is sanctifying me through the role of motherhood.
6. If I can stop worrying about how my children's choices reflect on me as a mother and define me as a person, I can actually focus on their needs I CAN meet.
7. Being free from nursing my pride and wounded reputation (for other people and myself) means I am not bogged down in my own self-imposed garbage.
8. Free Jamison has the perspective to see motherhood as missional service.
9. Free Jamison is capable of empathy, mercy, and sound mind.
10. Free Jamison doesn't look to her own interests, but to the interests of others - namely, Luke & Stephen.
Whoops. 10 points isn't exactly simpler, but I feel like I got to the point.
I am my own person with an identity rooted in Christ. How deeply rooted I am depends entirely on my willingness to pursue Him and approach my day in a posture of dependence on Him. While my children will certainly mimic me, look to me, and reflect some of my teaching - they don't actually reflect me, and they certainly shouldn't define me. What a terrible burden to bear as a little lamb to bear the burden of the success or failure of the mama sheep. How terrible.
Let's be our own people. Mamas who can take the fact that our kids sin without getting in such a funk that we forget who we are and all of the sudden look to them to give us our worth.
My name is Jamison and I am the mother of Luke and Stephen. Luke and Stephen sometimes do super hurtful and even embarrassing things on the regular. I (try to) handle them with a calm demeanor, discipline them, and then it's water under the bridge. Because that's what they deserve - a secure mother that can be strong when they are weak, under control when they are out of control, and not ashamed even when they do shameful things.
I have failed them both recently. But I will no longer allow myself to fail them simply because of my own pride and wrongfully taking responsibility for choices beyond my control. I choose the truth. I choose freedom. I choose the easy yoke and light burden offered by my Lord because only then can I have the right perspective to lead my littles in a way that offers mercy and hope rather than burden and stress.
Let's walk in freedom, mama-sister-friends.
**Flesh and blood do not a child make... I am not intending to exclude adoption. Them babies is YOUR babies. Bless you and yours.
