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This is the first chapter in the series on Opening Your Hands - The Art of Letting Go.
There will be eleven chapters altogether. I realize these are not short -
but you'll only get two a month :)
I trust that you will be rewarded for the effort of reading. And please take time to work through the questions at the end, slowly reading and pondering the truth in the verses. God's word will comfort and correct.
“I promise to never let anything happen to you, Nemo.”
Contrary to what Pixar wanted us to believe about parental love in Finding Nemo, and contrary to what we think is true of the member-of-the-family, Daisy, who had eight adorable puppies, animals do not love their offspring. In the animal kingdom, most mothers stay with their newborns for one to two years. Snake babies are on their own from birth. Baby harp seals get twelve days. Elephants stick around for six years! And then there is the human being.
At this point in history, we generally believe it takes eighteen years to prepare a child to live on their own - and at that age they may still be bringing home laundry, emptying the refrigerator and on their parent’s cell phone plan. It takes a long time to raise an adult human. Thankfully that gives us a long time to learn what it means to love one. And learning what it means to love one, will make it a little easier to let them go when the time comes.
Sadly, there are some mothers who can not wait until the last child is in kindergarten or graduates from high school so they can get on with what they value most in life. Usually they have stopped prioritizing the care for their child’s well being long before this. This extreme attitude may not be yours, but every mother everywhere has struggled in one way or another to love their children. To be honest, we have all had days where we are not sure we even like our kids.
When the apostle Paul wrote to Titus about how to organize the churches on the Island of Crete, he also included instructions for setting up a women’s ministry. Well almost. Some people have seen the specific instructions given to older and younger women in chapter two as a guideline for what to emphasize in women’s mentoring and discipleship. There are seven topics that older women are to teach younger women. Number two is “love you children.”
Of the two Greek words for “love” that Paul used in his letters, he did not choose to use here the word agape that signifies a sacrificial love that lays down one’s life for another. This is the word that describes Christ’s love for us and the love we are to have for fellow believers. It seems very appropriate for a mother’s love. Laying down her life for her children is what is required of a mother from the moment she realizes she is pregnant. But Paul chose to use the Greek word: Phileo, which denotes a tender and cherishing affectionate love. It is often translated, “kiss.” I do not think Paul used this word in contrast to agape, but to highlight that affection which was meant to be natural to mothers. It is the kind of love that delights in the other person, genuinely enjoys being around them, and desires their well-being.
In looking back over her upbringing, author Andree Sue, remembers that her parents, though imperfect in many ways, delighted in their children.
“Delight covers a multitude of parenting shortcomings. You may be too strict or too lenient and still come out all right if you delight in your children. They will know it, for delight cannot be hidden. It finds excuses to ooze all over the place. It seeks a getaway vacation with the beloved when it’s not convenient. It asks different questions than duty. Duty says, “I should.” Delight says, “I want to.”
(Andree Sue, World 9.22.07)
Most moms will remember this kind of love, the love that was instinctive when you first held your newborn, when your infant first smiled and when your child discovered a new skill. This love also naturally arose when your child was very ill, injured or came to you for help. This love is a God-given grace to all mothers and children. Without it our children would not survive!
However, this love, though seemingly ingrained in a mom, is fickle. Because all of us are born as sinners to sinful parents, all mothers struggle to different degrees and in different seasons to tenderly love their children. And we get confused. As we get farther and farther from the Garden of Eden where all was as it should be, we feel the curse more deeply and pervasively. Made in God’s image to joyfully love him supremely and love people sacrificially, our love becomes muddled and mutated, or as Augustine would describe, our love is disordered.
There are a lot of dissimilar images in our culture of what a mother’s love should look like. From “tiger mom” to “best friend mom”. From “academic mom” to “soccer mom.” From “healthy mom” to “messy but crafty mom.” Some of these are more or less harmless; all of them can distract from truly loving. Sometimes they lead to not loving at all. Is it any wonder that mothers today are confused about what it means to love their children? Is it any wonder that when moms have to let go of their children they get possessive or pushy? That suddenly love has nothing to do with the process?
Some mothers realize they do not have a tender love for their children because they never saw it modeled by their parents. Their own parents were too distracted by work, ambition or personal hobbies to nurture and show genuine concern. Or perhaps it was a deep woundedness that wrapped them tightly into the past and they were never present even while sharing the same home. You may have had parents who wronged you in significant, life-defining ways.
I know a woman who had a difficult relationship with her mother. When she had a son, she experienced all the normal warm fuzzy feelings. When she had a daughter, she had none of them. We carry our past into our relationships with our children. All these things can make it hard to affectionately love our children.
Even if we had perfect parents, it does not guarantee a perfect love from us. We might not have a tender love for our children because of our own frailties and besetting sins.
Selfishness, pride, fear and anger destroys a mother's love for her children. In so many different ways:
We may busy ourselves with our own agendas and neglect our children.
We may listen to the values of the world that say beauty, money, clothes, image are more important than children. (“Babies ruin figures.” “Find yourself.” “You’ve got to live your own life.”)
We may use our children to build up what we view is lacking in ourselves to fill voids in our relationships with others, including our husband.
We may become slaves to our children because we fear offending them or having them make us look bad in the eyes of others.
We may become angry at our children because we don’t like the time they take or the duties and responsibilities involved in raising them.
We may be disappointed in our children because we don't like something about them - they are not what we hoped for, or too much of a reflection of somebody else that is a reminder of a broken relationship or hurtful memory.
In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul gives us a description of love that the family of God is to display. Christian families can also use it for a guideline of loving attitudes.
The antithesis of love is selfishness.
A selfish mom wants to rule unquestionably as queen of her home expecting to be served by her family. She is
Impatient - more concerned about her own schedule than the needs and ideas of her children
Unkind - Does not value her children or see their needs
Envious - Does not want her children to enjoy what she can not have.
Boastful - Does not notice the achievements of her children.
Arrogant - Wants to make much of herself
Rude - Doesn’t notice the presence of her children. Justifies negative reactions.
Insistent on her own way - Hasn’t taken the time to hear her children’s thoughts
Irritable - Believes that anything that makes her feel bad must be wrong.
Resentful - When she doesn’t get her way, she only looks at how situations affect her and not at how it affects her children. She is easily offended
Gives up easily - Doesn’t like hard work. Wants immediate gratification.
Is distrustful and doubtful - Assumes the worst about her children. Interacts with suspicions.
In the end, we can move far from the picture of familial warmth and love most of us had or dreamed of having when we first held our children. This movement away from God’s plan for a mother and her child complicates the letting go process. Is it possible to change this?
Yes! What sin damages, grace and truth restores. Paul’s letter to Titus contains instructions of how older women were to teach and train younger women. This teaching involved instruction in what is beautiful, excellent, commendable and good. The training emphasized encouragement, and admonishment. (literally: “to call to one's senses.”) This kind of teaching and training in grace and truth has the power to restore in us the affectionate love we are to have for our children.
Growing in Grace
Woven throughout Paul’s letter is the gospel, beginning and ending with grace. Paul’s love of the gospel and his understanding of its power is seen as, twice, he “interrupts” his letter to remind Titus - and us - of the centrality of the Gospel. It is the knowledge of the truth and the hope of eternal life that brings about godliness. The Christian life is lived from start to finish by the grace of God and the transforming power of the gospel to the glory of our savior. If we are to grow in this grace, be transformed by this grace, we are to regularly rehearse the grace of the gospel message. This means that we are to grow in our understanding of our sinful tendencies and weakness, in our experience of God’s love, in our awareness of our need for Him, and in the practice of the pouring out of our hearts to him. It is this growth in grace that energizes us to obey God's instructions for daily living in this world.
It is this grace that enables us to love our children.
Growing in grace will help you accept and forgive the imperfect parents who parented you. Obviously, we might apply Jesus’ words and “Let she who has perfectly parented cast the first stone.” But think beyond that. You and I have sinned against the perfect Heavenly Father, demanding our own autonomy, throwing temper tantrums when we did not get our own way. She who has been forgiven much by her Heavenly Father, can forgive others. Even one’s parents. When God chose parents for you, he did not have any perfect ones to pick from. In His sovereign wisdom and love for you, he chose the parents that would best bring you to himself. Yes, that road may have been rough. But here you are, wanting to learn how to love your children. There must have been signposts along that road that led you here. Look back and see that your parent’s mistakes or even their evil intent, was used by God for your good. (Gen. 50:20; Rom 8:28).
In the same way God decreed who your parents would be, he gave you specific children for your growth in godliness and for theirs. He is working all details of this world together for His glory. Your pregnancies or adoptions were not random. Every chromosome was purposely knit together. Your children’s temperaments and giftedness, their weakness and strengths, even their spiritual aptitude are part of God’s plan. Will you trust that your Heavenly Father who loves you will not give you stones when you need bread? (Mat. 7:9-11)
If you would have affectionate feelings for your children again, remember you cannot truly love others until you know God’s love for you.
Consider how God demonstrates His fatherly love for you described in Psalm 103. Is our God not “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love?” Does he not know our frame and remember that we are dust? Ponder a new God’s matchless, indescribable love displayed in the giving of his son for you so that while you were still in your sins, Jesus died for you. This is abounding grace. This is the grace that changes our loves.
Growing in Truth
Growing in truth will cause you to consider how you think about your children. Feelings often begin in the thoughts. Rehearse the wrongs against you, the difficulties you face, your broken dreams, and your heart will get smaller and harder. Make it a prayer that the Lord would help you to renew your mind so that you are not chained to the past nor conformed to the falsehoods the world bombards us with.
The truth is that your children are blessings not burdens. (Ps 127:3) We may never know the far reaching effects of our pro-abortion culture. We breathe this air even if we are unabashedly pro-life. We live where my rights and my happiness come before anyone else's. Talk about the great burdens of raising children subtly and not so subtly slips into conversations.
“Two brats are enough for me.”
“I’m sick and tired of you.”
“This is a real vacation . . . . no kids coming.”
“If I have to . . . . one more time, I’m going to . . . . .”
“I wish you’d be more like . . . . “
“One day you’ll have kids and I hope they treat you as badly as you’ve treated me.”
You know the difference between a comment about how hard it is to be a mom that comes from an honest cry for help and the comment made in selfish bitterness. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. The Psalmist told us that children are a heritage from the Lord, a gift, a reward. Jesus loved the little children.
Spend some time thinking through the blessings you have received because you have children. Toddlers give us gifts of big messy hugs and spontaneous gifts from whatever catches their eye - weeds, bugs, shells and stones. There is the gift of unmerited awe when they look at you with their God given desire to know your approval. There is laughter and discovery everyday and everywhere. Teens bless you with an expanded look at life from new perspectives, a front row seat to a developing independent mind and talent, and more laughter. “They keep you young” is a truism. Don’t buy the line that children make you poor. Children make us so much richer.
This truth will come up in another chapter, but lest you never get that far, remember children are not your possessions. They are not toys to dress up and show off on instagram posts. They are not trophies to brag about how many clubs they are in or where they go to summer camp. They are not here to boost your self importance or ego. On the other extreme, they are not little slaves to do your bidding or to be silenced at any inconvenience. Your children belong to God. You are God’s steward of them. We are instruments in the Lord’s hands.
Do you need to be reminded that children are “precious little sinners”. (Eph 6:4; Heb 12:5-11). I coined this phrase when asked a question about my kids in an interview my husband was giving for a pastoral position. I guess it made quite an impression. The term stuck. I was trying to communicate that I loved my kids and yet wasn’t surprised by their sinfulness. I didn’t want anyone thinking of them as “PK’s: terror of the church” nor did I want them to put my kids on a pedestal and be shocked when they did kid stuff. My children, precious to me though they are, need a savior.
Your children are not devils. They are also not angels.
Don’t lose perspective. Yes, the days can be long when a child is sick. Or you are sick. Or money is tight. Or a host of other reasons. Truth is, your time with your children is short. Right now at this age, at this stage, delight in the moment. Emphasize the joys not the difficulties. Confess to the Lord a complaining spirit and he will answer with a heart of thanksgiving. He has promised to do so. He will awaken love in you for your children. A tender and cherishing affectionate love. This will then be the foundation for the greatest act of love: letting your children go.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises,
so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue,
and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
2 Peter 1:3-7
Thoughts to Ponder
We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
What difference does it make that God loved you first?
In what ways have you experienced God’s love?
One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. Psalm 145:4
What does God desire a family legacy to include?
Were your parents godly role models for you? Are there areas that you need to cover with love or forgive with grace?
What ways can you pass on to your children stories of God’s “mighty acts?”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Isaiah 49:15
How is God’s love for you and your children, greater than your love?
What do you remember from when your child was an infant? If those feelings have changed, what happened?
Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. 1 Tim. 2:15
Do you believe that God gave you your specific individual children for your personal sanctification?
What do you think God is trying to teach you right now through your children?
A Mother’s Prayer
Loving Lord,
You loved me before the world began, before I even knew you existed. You loved me while I was still a sinner, while I was enslaved to the pursuit of my own self-advancement. You loved me even though I spurned your love and company, even though I thought I could do life better myself.
Oh gracious Lord, when I was blind and lost and stubborn, you came to me. The distance between us was unmeasurable, but you crossed the eternal span of the heavens and came to earth to live among us identifying with my limitations, my frailties, my vulnerabilities. And after living the righteous life I never could, you took the punishment for my rebellion and brought me back into a loving relationship with your Father.
Your love is wider, deeper, higher, longer, more everlasting, wiser and kinder and more wrapped in goodness than I will ever experience to its fullness. I delight in little glimpses of the whole. I long to have it be the light around me, the air that I breathe, and the food that I eat. Continue to make your love known to me.
How I need you to work your love through me to my children! My self centered demand for comfort or recognition arises every day. I demand and do not delight. I complain and do not give thanks.
You know me all too well. And you know my children too. They, like me, need so much help. I can easily be overwhelmed with their needs, and sins, and follies. Help me to see them as you do. Help me to trust them into your sovereign care. Remind me that you love them more than I ever will.
And remind me again of your love for me that is not dependent on my perfection as a mom, that is not dependent on the success of my children, and that will always be exponentially different from my ability to love.