Your 11 year old daughter comes to you looking scruffy exclaiming she’s hungry, has a headache and is frustrated that her Ipad is glitchy.
One look at her and the first thing you see is that manky t-shirt she’s been wearing all week and you’re wondering, has she had a shower this week (it’s Wednesday afternoon), I told her to change her shirt yesterday, was this was she was wearing?, the summer hols is nearly over, what’s she doing faffing around with her ipad, she should be practicing her maths and French.
But what comes out of your mouth is, come here let me pray for you – no one in this household should be sick, and headache is not allowed. You pray for her, offer her some water and a meal.
Being a parent requires us to be mentally, emotionally and spiritually ambidextrous. Children – be they adopted, biological, spiritual need us to be aware of them and ourselves at the same time. It seems an impossible task sometimes and no doubt mishaps are part of the script. With premeditation we can.
I’m know what it means to be loved well. I’m that 11 year old that presents herself to the Lord with a litany of needs and wants, feelings and thoughts. Sometimes it seems I’m met with silence, and often those are the most profound moments for growth, meditation, pause, reflection. On the other side of this is clarity and peace.
God is a good Father. Parenting is His invention. I’m yet to hear a divine declaration revealing the perfect parent, clearly God knows how to help us rise above the flaws, shortcomings that come with the package of family life. Some of the men and women used by God – by modern day standards – fall neatly in the ‘bad parent’ category. The beauty of this and the hope for us all is that with God we can be the parents our children require us to be. If ever there was a job description for parents, I reckon those words would be written in bold.
Family, The Divine Enterprise 