My daughter wanted me to give her a ride to school this morning and I did even though the school is only three blocks away. I’m just so nice, right?
We got to the little intersection where there is a trail that leads to the school. I like her to get out there because then I avoid the rush of crazy High School students driving to school. When I stopped I said “Ok, have a great day!” and she looked at me and said “I can’t get out here, how embarrassing!”
I looked at her and said “Oh my yes, you are right! I would be so embarrassed if you got out here! I’m going to drive you around the corner so that nobody sees me driving my daughter to school.” She just looked at me in kind of a silly way…because of course we both know she meant SHE would be the one imbarassed and not ME!
She got out of the car and I headed home and in my 2 min ride I felt so energized thinking that I am just so hilarious! I almost laughed out loud!
But then I started thinking “what if we acted like our kids all the time?”
What if we…
- We threw ourselves on the floor with tantrums like a two year old
- We yelled “that’s not fair” when things didn’t go our way
- We made faces back when our kids made faces or rolled their eyes at us
- We slammed the doors when we were angry
- What if we yelled “I hate you!” back when our kids yelled that at us?
- What if when our kids hit…we hit too?
All of a sudden God popped my balloon and my silliness turned serious, because this is a slippery slope if we are not careful. You see, someone needs to be the adult here…right? It is tempting for us to act out just as much as it is for a child, but hopefully we have learned a certain amount of self-control along the way.
Now I didn’t say it was easy, but God has given us the job of Mom to guide our children.
I don’t really feel what I said to my daughter was mean, I was being kind of silly and sometimes kids need to have a behavior mirrored back at them so they can see just how ridiculous it is. I’m simply saying…we need to be careful that this doesn’t become a hardened heart habit.
Kids get enough sarcasm and hurt out in the world. Let’s speak life to our children!
So God’s reminder to me is your reminder too…be the Mom that God has created you to be even when you don’t feel like it.
“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14
