Give up, give in, rest

"Stop fighting me!  I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt."

I said that to my son this morning as he attempted to dive off of the back of a chair and through a window.  The words left my mouth and I was suddenly flooded with all of the words my parents said to me over and over while I was growing up.  In spite of how I believed they felt about me as a teenager, they were, in truth, trying to keep me from hurting.  How I fought them.  I sneaked around, I lied, I did what I wanted in covert ways that kept me from trouble, but did damage to my heart.

I see the sneakiness in my daughter and it terrifies me.  Granted, it's three year old sneakiness of coloring on walls, raiding my closet for clothes to dress up in when I ask her not to and in general doing what she wants as long as she thinks I can't see her.  I see the fight in my son and it frightens me, even though it is only the fight of an eighteen month old.   Oh, that stubborn face when he gets determined to do something.  Even after I've just caught him in mid-air or pulled his hand from the flame (sometimes literally).  I didn't think I was a worrier, but it seems this is my first instinct as a parent.

Our culture says YOLO! (you only live once)  Our culture encourages us to live and love recklessly.  There seems to be some mysterious beauty and allure in the untamed heart.  I have felt that.  "'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" they say, but somehow that mostly applies to sleeping around.  We aren't there yet.  My kids are small.  But seeing their resistance to the wisdom of my years even now brings that worry.

I see the willingness in myself to still have those sneaky, stubborn, rebellious traits in spite of the fact that they do damage to my health, my relationships...everything!  I can hear God saying the words I say to my children.  Granted they are more gentle, but there are those words in my heart. Give up, Give in, Rest.

Give up the stubborn need to be right.  Give up the worry about these kiddos, give up the secret desires of my dark heart that threaten everything around me.  The fear, the anger, the selfishness, the shame, the covetousness. 

Give up the insanity.  Give in to my Grace.  Rest.

 

Sounds like a plan.