*love*

Do I enjoy mothering?

Or do I merely survive each day, as though the reward were in the finish line rather than the race itself?

***

If I’m being totally honest, the deepest longing of my heart in this whole mothering thing is that I want to be delighted by my children, and our journey together. As we travel on this winding road, I want to feel the sun beating down on my shoulders, the wind blowing my hair, and soft earth under my feet. And when it’s stormy or cloudy or cold I want to get cozy together by drawing near to each other for comfort, even as other forces try to tear us apart.

So often the mama crowd falls into the endless hole of angst and fussiness, as though it were The True Test of Survival to endure the little years and emerge more or less unscathed. There’s a time and a place for expressing gritty and raw emotion bled forth from our deepest longings and humanity, but after the cathartic emptying there’s a choice to be made about how to fill ourselves back up. What framework do I set before myself?

The question at hand is what is my practice of mothering? What do I try to do to enjoy it more? I do one thing, and it is simply this: to remind myself that I am free.

I’m set free. 

From heavy and costly expectations and checkboxes and behavioural standards. From the need to raise a well-behaved child. From the idea that obedience is more important than their hearts. From the old laws that Jesus came to satisfy.

Freedom to try to parent my children as my God parents me. 

{With grace and freedom and love}.

And here’s why…

I believe that obedience and compliance are inferior goals in parenting, and that when those goals are achieved by means of punishment and fear that we are actually hindering our children’s understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

How does this parenting thing generally go in our culture (especially in “Christian culture”)? The typical goal is to raise children that are obedient so that they learn to obey God. How is this achieved? Generally through fear and punishment. The threat of punishment (whether it’s spanking, loss of privileges, time-outs, or something else altogether) is imminent at all times if the child disobeys enough to “warrant” it. This is generally an effective deterrent to misbehaviour, and children grow up compliant and obedient.

The problem is that God does not parent us this way.  

How does the Bible describe how God relates to His children? It says that God has made a New Covenant with us. When God spoke these words through the prophet Jeremiah, Israel had a culture of external control. God related to the people through external forces such as the pillar of cloud, and leprosy and stoning as consequences for sin. There were priests and temples and sacrifices – all ways to relate to God externally.

“Now in the external governing system, the motivating force in the relationship with God came in the form of blessings for obedience and threats of punishment… If the threat of punishment were to be removed, God’s people would lapse into another season of rebellion against Him… Unfortunately, many of us… continue to raise our children according to an Old Testament paradigm. It is still common… to believe that mistakes or sin must be punished. The parenting model that flows from this paradigm presents a “punisher” role for the parent and creates an “outside-in” approach to learning about life for the child.” (D. Silk, “Loving Our Kids on Purpose”).

In our culture now, God relates to His children from the inside. His Holy Spirit is our conscience and guide, and we no longer have external controls to ensure obedience. Christ came as the final sacrifice, and took the punishment upon himself. We are set free to make a choice without the threat of punishment. He gives grace upon grace, and when we mess up yet again he simply lavishes love upon us richly and gently guides us back to the right way.

This is the kind of parent I want to be.

The kingdom of God does not operate based on control. God doesn’t want a fearful Pharisaical rule-follower who doesn’t know love. He wants us to learn to walk in freedom, not bondage. To freely choose to love him, and to revel in that choice. To spin around with outstretched arms, feeling the wind on our faces and the sweetness of freely choosing love. To organically learn the natural consequences for our sin and to understand that His ways are so much better, and then to freely choose Him in love. To know the sorrow of freely choosing something other than Him, and the joyful repentance and restoration that comes from His incredible grace.

This is the kind of parent I want to be.

I want to remember that I am free, and to teach this truth to my children. To tell them that they too are free. To make sinful choices and to reap the sorrow that comes from separation. To freely choose love and obedience because it is better, not because it is mandated. Through the power of Christ we are free. May I always model in my parenting the freedom and love of God’s kingdom so that they know…

We’re set free.

***

This outpouring of my heart is inspired by The Practices of Parenting Carnival, hosted by Sarah at Emerging Mummy. Check out her blog on Monday, February 6th, for a fantastic collection of posts on this same topic, and consider joining in with your own thoughts!