- Please wash your hands after you pee.
- Can you please look where you are going?
- What do you say?
- How do you say that politely?
- Please put that where it goes. Neatly.
- Can you please share?
These are just a few of the phrases I find myself repeating over 50 times a day. It really baffles me how my children, who can remember the names of the pony they rode just once, over six months ago, can not remember these basic instructions that I have repeated to them over and over every single day since they were old enough to walk and talk. I often ask, how many times must I repeat the same thing to you before you can remember to do it on your own? And then there is the classic “I’m tired of repeating myself!”
This cycle that my children and I go through is no different from what the Heavenly Father goes through with us His children. How many times has He told us we do not have to be afraid if our hope is in Him? How many times has He told us to read our Bibles and do what His Word says if we want our lives to prosper? How many times has He told us to put our trust in Him and not in our own strength? How many times has He told us not to worry, because he will never fail us?
Honestly, I’m surprised that God hasn’t just exploded one day and said to me,
I’m tired of repeating myself!
Thankfully God is not like me. His love is long suffering. His mercies are new every single morning. His love for me does not need refilling because it never runs out.
I’m always challenged to love our children the way God loves us. Whenever I get cross with them for not behaving how I expect them to, the Holy Spirit gently reminds me of my own actions towards my Heavenly Father. How I often fall short of His expectations of me over and over and how He responds to me with His love, mercy and grace. Not impatience and exasperation. And this leads me to cry out: Lord help me! Please help me to respond to my children the way You respond to me! Please teach me and help me to show love like You do.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 is how I desire to love my children, my spouse, my relatives my friends and neighbors. Here it is from The Passion Translation:
“Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving.”
In light of all this, is there some lesson that God has been trying to teach you over and over? Now is the time to commit that particular lesson to memory and move on to the next by His grace. And just like you would be so proud of your child when they remember to do something you told them, you can look forward to God’s ‘‘well done’’ when you remember to do something He has told you in His Word.
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Read more of Rachel’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
