If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a fifty times, probably ten in the last two weeks:
God picked Sam for us and He picked us for Sam.
So this match is a good match. A perfect match, in fact. Even if we struggle sometimes and butt heads. Even if we wouldn’t have picked each other.
Our family is perfectly fit together. Because God’s ways are perfect and all he does is good. Because God is always good.
Leaning Hard
I’ve never doubted that. But, boy, how I’ve had to lean into that truth a lot lately.
Because disappointment and frustration and troubles of diverse parent-child types have disturbed our peace and bad, scrambled weeks have come around more often than either one of us would wish.
Parenting keeps teaching me- driving me, really- to lean hard on my sovereign, good God.
You more experienced moms out there- I hear you.
You’re nodding, now, and saying, “Just you wait. Keep leaning, sister. Keep right on leaning on the everlasting arms.”
I know it. I’ve been mom to a teen for not quite all of one day, but already I know you are right. I need God’s help. Letting said son have the last word takes epic resurrection power.
And while physical dependence equals immaturity or weakness, dependence on God marks the strongest of saints.
To a Different Drummer
Today Sam turned 13. The “teen-scene” is new to all of us. But Sam has never been our puppet on a string. From day one- when I first held that stoic 6-month old in the the airport terminal- Sam has always been his own man.
Way back to that furry red, Elmo-basket hat, Sam has marched to his own (thanks, Dad) bagpipes-and-drums beat.
To this prone to bossing mama, God gave a strong son, who wouldn’t be overborne. And while I might have wished for a kid who would play the sports and read the books and make the friends that I might pick for him, that’s not Sam.
Because Sam’s my beloved son- our A#1. And training him is a big means that God is using to shape me. To train me to cry out and pray when things don’t go my way.
And, for the record, nothing that pushes us to pray is a bad thing.
Humbled And Exposed
So I refuse to write-off or ride out these teen-age years. No, I want to exploit these years.
I want to be shaped by every ounce of Christ-conforming experience that these teenage years afford.
It won’t be easy. It’s not easy. When A#1 calls me out- my motives, my computer use, my eating habits, my tone of voice- it’s humbling. Having our selfish ways exposed is hard.
In Age of Opportunity– which I’d highly recommend for parents of teens- Paul David Tripp, nails this truth.
The tumult of the teen years is not the only about the attitudes and actions of teens, but the thoughts, desires, attitudes and actions of parents as well. The teen years are hard for us because they tend to bring out the worst in us.
Those years are hard for us because they expose the wrong thoughts and desires of our own hearts….These years are hard for us because they rip back the curtain and expose us. This is why trials are so difficult, yet so useful in God’s hands.
We don’t radically change in a moment of trial. No, trials expose what we have always been. Trials bare things to which we would have otherwise been blind.
And seeing those things, so we can change these things, is a good thing.
Rats in the Cellar
And we rejoice in our suffering. In our exposures and in our parenting disappointments and broken dreams and let-downs.
C.S. Lewis called those things rats in the cellar. So, too, the teen years expose us. But really, so did the infant years and the toddler years. All the years are capable.
Now he catches me micromanaging his alarm clock, and arguing about video game time, and being stubborn about hoodies and tennis shoes. These are my rats in the cellar now. Some of my rats.
Like when Sam crept out from a nap early and caught me red-handed eating a forbidden food for a 3- year old. My rats in the cellar were brownies in the pantry.
And my snacking habits were forever changed, because I’d been exposed.
That We Might Not Rely On Ourselves
So while conflict and clash in this little clan can sometimes feel like a royal battle, they’re not. Sometimes I am hard-pressed, but I am not crushed, I’m praying more, leaning more and relying more on my God to bring his perfect will to pass than I did before.
And all of that is good.
Because we like to think we can pull things off- even things like raising kids- on our own. I think Apostle Paul felt like he could handle anything. He was intelligent and articulate and influential.
And, as Ray Steadman explains,
[R]epeatedly God had to break that, to put him in circumstances he could not handle, that he might learn not to rely on himself, but
on God, who raises the dead.That is the major reason, I think, for suffering, which is the pressure that is designed to destroy our determined stubbornness. Paul has learned to trust God to take him through whatever life throws at him, no matter what it is.
No matter if there’s a teen-ager in the house.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.
But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:8b-9
