... was my third complete day in a row almost without leaving the house at all - I didn't realize how unusual this has become until I realized how abnormal it felt when it happened.
... I didn't get dressed until almost 1:30 p.m. (in spite of the fact that I was up and at 'em with reasonable (I didn't say sufficient) earliness).
... a breakfast discussion, centered loosely on the significance and implications of varying musical tastes, lasted far longer than it meant to when it came in, and possibly accomplished less ... but had a middling to good time while it stayed.
... I was a little stir-crazy, but mostly happy. It's good to be busy, and it's good to take a break.
... my parents and numerous siblings were gone, or at least otherwise occupied, for much of the day - which left myself and a certain unnamed younger brother to console and entertain one another for that duration of time.
... that brother and I managed to accomplish a quite decent amount of school work in a few hours, with somewhat startling cooperation on the part of our junior member, and (perhaps in consequence) unusually durable good humor for the senior.
... I didn't do much at all in the way of anything resembling housework.
... we made banana muffins together, just for fun.
... we ended our just-you-and-me part of the day with a mammoth argument about whether or not the brother (now you know why he's unnamed) should do as he was told, even though the job in question belonged technically on someone else's chore list.
I know ... I shouldn't have succumbed to the temptation to argue in the first place. "Because I'm in charge and I asked you to do it," should have been enough - but a discussion of why it's not only okay, but good, to do things that aren't your job, if it helps your family ... and why one doesn't need to fully understand the reasoning behind a command in order to obey it ... and why this, that, and the other thing .... such discussions are difficult to not start with argumentative eight-year-olds, and take long and convoluted paths once begun. I think I can safely say I kept my temper, but I'm also pretty sure almost nothing I said got through. If it did, he didn't let on.
Dad arrived home in time to prevent utter mutiny and to induce compliance and apologies, but not in time to keep the tarnish off my shiny day. Not that it had been absolutely stellar and outstanding or anything, but I'd been enjoying it in a plain, homey way ... and then it had to end like that. I've never been a mom, but it made me feel kind of like one, prematurely.
After that brother and that father had gone off to run some errands together, I had the house to myself for a little while, and I mulled it over in the quiet. Love is inexplicable, I thought. Why do people even bother having kids, when it's well-established that they're going to be miserable little ingrates the entire time they live with their parents? Why do people insist on getting married, when everyone who's already married agrees and warns them that it's really, really hard?
Sure, romance is great and all, but, I don't know ... so is rock climbing. There's other stuff you can do. Sure, babies are cute - but so are hamsters! Sort of. But really, why not just get a hamster? I mean, life is full of all kinds of great things ... why not go for something that hurts less? What's the big idea?
I was eight once, myself, and definitely obnoxious, but my parents put up with me. Why? I have no idea. (Okay, actually I do. Stick with me.) I was a helpless baby before that, for Pete's sake - an intensively full-time Taker with never a thought of Giving anything in return beyond cuteness, which didn't last that long, anyway. And now I'm twenty-one ... hopefully a little wiser, a little more helpful ... but still responsible for more than my share of frustrations, confusions, migraines, and heartaches. (Don't believe me? Ha! Believe me.) I kind of tasted a little bit of the other side of the equation for a few hours today - certainly not for the first time, but maybe one of the most poignant.
So why do these parents of mine not only allow me to live, but love me??? I'm not worth it - I mean, I'm just a person, and for most of my life so far, just a kid. I get more of the answers wrong than right. I spill milk all the time, and cry over it for good measure. I can't spin the straw into gold ... I can't. I can't.
Well ... another thing I can't do is speak for the world at large. But for my parents - and for all those other lovers and parents who've been ransomed with blood and raised from the dead - I think the answer is kind of easy, and kind of really impossibly hard. We not only can love, we do love, in spite of the pain, in spite of the unworthiness of the object, in spite of the irrationality, because it's a picture of who God is and what He's done, because it's what He wants from us - because we love Him. And how is that possible, miserable, dust-formed, corrupted creatures that we are?
We love Him because He first loved us. (1John 4:19)
We are His children, we are His bride. Can you believe it? He's giving us a chance to be like Him. He lets us take on pictures of His role in our relations to other people, so that His unfathomable, unreasonable love can pour out through us and change others, and change us - so that everyone who sees the glory of this apparent foolishness will know, now or one day, that Christ is Lord indeed.
And so that tousle-haired little rebel can still have my heart, even though I don't always like him that much, even though he calls me names and won't do what I tell him to, and even though he's not my kid. And so my parents keep on loving me, even though I am their kid. Because when we look at each other we see ourselves, and when we've been loved like that, how can we not - how can we not love back?
1 comment:
since i just read about how much bloggers like comments, i'll give you a doozy
while it is true that "I'm in charge and I told you" is enough for him to have to do it, I don't actually believe that it's wise, or even biblical parenting technique. Go for the head and the heart! ask said nameless brother questions that lead him to explain out loud that he exists for God, and to glorify Christ, and that Jesus said to love the brethren as He has loved us (much higher standard than the golden rule, isn't that!). then go for the heart; see if you can't help him see that what was parading itself as indignation at injustice was really just a combination of being lazy about working, though plenty diligent when it comes to defiance.
all of that to say that though you maybe shouldn't get into an argument, there's absolutely nothing wrong with attaching to your commands patient reasoning and gentle heart-pleading. after all, has not your heavenly Father done this over, and over, and over with you in the Bible and even in providence? so, be careful of inflexible parenting formula.
"first time obedience, every time!" is an excellent law. but law cannot help you to keep itself. only grace can help you keep law. so lots of Bible to the head, and lots of graciousness to the heart, and lots of prayer for this little one who will one day shine like the sun in the kingdom of His Father. you actually get to participate in the preparation of one who will outshine and outrank angels in eternal glory!
bottom line 1: i don't think that just because you didn't boil it down to "because i said so" that you necessarily did badly
bottom line 2: that opportunity to participate in that amazing work is reason enough to keep being fruitful and multiplying the little buggers; but, God could also quite as well say, "because i said so" too!
bottom line 3: we love because God, who calls and commands us to do so, is worthy of it. not because they are worthy of it. same with honoring parents. same with loving your wife and giving yourself up for her, or submitting to your husband as unto the Lord.
not that our children aren't actually lovable--little sin machines that they are, lovable do they ever remain.
not that parents aren't honorable. some are vile, and if the state wasn't sinning against God, it would execute many parents. but some (yours for instance) are worthy of great honor.
not that some husbands aren't noble and honorable and gentle and strong in a way that makes them well worth submitting to. but how few these are in these troubled times! surely less such husbands than the lovable children or honorable parents above! -- and may our good God grant you one of the few.
but, at the end of the day, we love, and we honor, and we lay ourselves down or give ourselves up... because we render all of this first unto God, and only secondarily unto the human recipient.
so i said bottom line. twice. and then i proceeded to make a whole other comment as an afterthought. in fact, my comment may have ended up longer than your post. which is very bad form.
but you can be patient with such a comment as a service first unto God! and for His sake, loving this stranger as yourself.
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