We all need grace and truth and boy, did we need it this morning. Well, I really need the grace part. We had an awesome teaching about grace and truth yesterday. At least that is the part that really caught my attention. I was unable to focus a lot while he was teaching about peace because I had a headache and was very irritable all morning.
Seems to be a theme this week, I was irritable this morning too and luckily remembered the message about grace and truth. You can not just get God's peace right in the middle of a heated argument with your son. Yes, I remembered that part of the teaching. You must build peace. The seed is planted and by God's grace it grows until you have peace before you even enter the situation which caused the heated argument.
The truth is we need to look at this situation that caused the heated argument, which actually wasn't an argument but was more about me complaining so much that the cashier at the gas station smiled and said, "Have a great day, mom!" To which I replied, "Thank you so much for listening. I feel a lot a better now." And we all, including my son, laughed on the way out. That was God's grace for sure.
So how do we build a foundation of peace for the next situation that arises out of the sheer frustration I have been having with this boy. I realized that is the problem. He is still a boy but the trickery comes into play because he looks like a man so it throws you for a loop when he acts like a boy. However, I know my job as a parent is to expect him to act like a responsible man and yet, offer grace when he blows it by recognizing he is learning to perfect that role and not very experienced at it.
I have no idea what my excuse is. This is my third child that has been in this phase and I still can't seem to get it right. Some parents just give up and shrink back from the truth. God gave us the responsibility to train up our children in the way they should go. I will not quit trying to do that, I embrace the truth, though I feel so unqualified for the task. Thank God for his grace.
2 comments:
Yes, thank God for His grace. Sometimes different parents deal better with different ages. My mom couldn't handle us when we were around two years old. She's still the same way with my niece. Sometimes, she just loses patience. I suppose patience is required again when kids grow into teens. Athough, I don't think teens are easy for anyone. I just read some research about how teens revert to more basic forms of moral reasoning even thought they were at higher levels right before the teen years. I also learned that in some hunter-gatherer societies, teens also revert back to more concrete modes of thinking even though they had likewise achieved some abstractness prior to that. Teens also don't have fully developed frontal lobes, which are involved in planning, flexibility, abstract thinking, monitoring behavior, and understanding consequences. Yes, God's grace is definitely necessary. May His grace abound...
Hmmm, I was just reading more of Werner's works and he suggests that more "primitive" modes of operating are subsumed by more "advanced" modes of operating. However the "primitive" modes do not disappear. In fact, under stress, a more "advanced" human can revert to more "primitive" modes of thinking. All that to say, perhaps teens are under a great deal of stress and thus frequently revert to more "primitive" modes of operation. Or perhaps that is too simplified. You can just ignore me, I am currently under the influence of psychobabble.
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