So What

I spent a lot of years with the knowledge that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whomsoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) I memorized this as a child.  A child who was not hugged, talked to, played with, or rescued.  I knew all the words, and it meant nothing to me.  I took the idea of God's love and stuffed it into the broken box I had about what love was, and what love was not.

I also knew all about grace.  I knew that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. (Titus 2:11)  I took the idea of God's grace and I trimmed it down to the size of the grace I knew about.  I knew that grace was for little things that you did on accident.  I knew that anything you did on purpose made you a bad person.  I knew that big, major screw ups would leave me abandoned.  I knew that at the end of the day, there definitely were things I could do that grace would not touch, and I would be left with no one to help me fix it.  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were things outside of where grace could reach, and they'd always be there, never to be forgiven.

I did not grow up with examples of unconditional love and forgiveness and grace.  I had no concept of it.  When you're a child, you know that nobody would love you more than your parents.  If there were limits to that love, then there were even greater limits on the rest.  When I tried to match my bible knowledge with what I knew, it reconciled in a way that diminished God to another person that I would never be good enough for.

Fast forward a couple decades, and I'm only just beginning to understand the cascade of damage done by bad parenting.  I'm only now starting to see how backwards I had things, and how my understanding of God cheated me out of knowing the love and peace and comfort that comes from the God that wants me, loves me, and promises to wipe away every tear.  I have to allow grace for myself here, because my first thought is how I blew it.  Grace says, "start again."

Several times on this parenting journey I have thought about things that I should have done differently with the boys.  My excuse has been "Nobody showed me how to do it better."  SO WHAT.  I have to constantly remind myself that I'm not in the same place I was 15, 20, or 25 years ago.  I'm not a helpless child anymore and I can take control now.  First of all, if I look around, I do have people showing me how to do it.  God has given us great friends who provide some rock solid examples of what Christ centered, loving parents do with and for their kids.  In addition, there's this little book that has a lot of cool information in it - the bible.  When I can read the bible without my filter that scales it down, I'm overwhelmed with the love that Christ has shown time and time again.

I was thinking last night about my latest goal for myself of working on humility.  As I was starting to think of practical ways that it can play out in my daily life, I realized that it's going to take some effort.  It's going to feel a lot like work, and it's not going to be fun.  Nobody showed me how to do this and it's going to be too hard to change now.  True, nobody showed me...but so what.  I'm not alone in this, God has been showing me that daily for the last year.  I have people to talk through it with, to process what it could look like for me, and to hold me accountable to do better.  I also know from my teaching background that the best way to learn something so that you truly know it is to study it enough to be able to teach it to someone else.  As I continue to head this direction, I've got these 3 little guys watching.  When I think of the actions I want them to see and emulate, it doesn't seem too difficult.  Regardless of what I was taught, I'm still called to be a woman who chases after God as I do my best to raise these boys into men who love and serve the Lord.

I think the next step of this healing journey is going to be that I give up my excuse I've clung to forever.  It is true that nobody showed me.  That is the absolute truth.  But so what.