At a very young age I took this scripture to heart, "Be holy as I am holy, says the Lord your God." "Mom, what's holy mean?" "Perfect." Be perfect as I am perfect... and that became one of my mortal flaws from my earliest memories. I've always wanted to get it right, be correct, not corrected, be on target or even ahead of the game. Rebuke brings humiliation, correction is shame. I have always jokingly used this to my advantage, "Don't you want a nurse who is a perfectionist?!? Or would you rather have someone who sometimes gets things right?" God knew this seed would be constant battle for me, so He lovingly uses the tool of Motherhood to dig it out of me. Motherhood is a spade. Motherhood gets at the heart of control, image, and the need to be right. Motherhood lays her silver blade at the base of Perfection and cuts down deep to the root of the problem.
From time to time I find myself uptight about parenting issues. Discipline. Speech. Potty training. Walking/crawling. I look at the problem from every angle I can find, ask millions of questions, read every article and board I can find, make every comparison possible... not to necessarily know how to best serve my son or daughter (though that's a part of it), but to find out if I'm right. It becomes more about the feelings of inadequacy and failure that I am feeling, than about the normal, timely process it takes for some things to take hold in my child's life. I worry more about whether I'm measuring up in other people's eyes, than whether I'm being kind and loving to my child in their time of transition. I came to the conclusion early on that I wouldn't post about struggles with my children because of their right to a private life, their chance to develop without me throwing up my blogging hands at their failures. I don't think this is an image game. But in my deepest heart, when I feel anger and resentment boil up when he/she doesn't seem to be "getting it," I've learned to step back and say, "What's the REAL issue here? Is it because I can't control this situation? Is it because I feel the pressure to check one more thing off my parental list? Is it because I can't be perfect?" These thoughts are a sign to me of the Holy Spirit's tender work in me, for nothing is more defeating to a perfectionist than knowing that to be perfectly human is to be imperfect, and to strive for anything else is vanity.
Lord, fill me with your kindness today towards my children... and as I feel my limitations, may I also repent and receive your kindness for myself.
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1 comment:
Amen. Amen. And, Amen.
I know what that need to control is like! I know those frustrations, and all that comes with it.
"I came to the conclusion early on that I wouldn't post about struggles with my children because of their right to a private life, their chance to develop without me throwing up my blogging hands at their failures."
~Thank you! I appreciate someone else feeling this way.
You sound very normal, by the way--that, or you're the same brand of 'not' normal that I am. =D I compare, I wonder, I worry, and the list goes on. I know that my husband and I parent the way we feel the Lord wants us to, but I get so easily self-conscious and insecure at times by other's remarks or what potentially can happen while out at the store...
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