As a mother, I am constantly bombarded with emails, seminars, articles, and social media posts about how I can raise my child to be (________)- fill in the blank: intelligent, well-rounded, social, compassionate, empathetic, financially savvy, etc. You name the topic, and you are sure to be able to find a "well-researched" article written by an "expert" somewhere on this world wide web of ours. I'm guilty of spending countless hours reading these type of articles that give me a step-by-step game plan on how to be a better parent, and better yet, how to implement a formula that can guarantee a specific outcome in my children. Pinterest has served me well as I've gotten some great ideas for Christian object lessons and activities that can really help me raise my children to be Christ-loving, mission-minded, Bible-reading believers. Thank God for all of these resources...or maybe not.
This past holiday season, I was invited to countless "blessing bag" parties, to the point that I was going to run out of money and need a blessing bag myself! At these gatherings (which are wonderful by the way), a group of us would come together and collect useful items to put into a bag that would later be distributed to the homeless. There are even neat little guidelines online that give you lists on what to include in your blessing bags, and how to plan your blessing bag party. As parents, many of us want our children to understand the beauty of giving, and we desire for them to have compassion on those who are poor, sick, and lonely. I, personally, want so badly for my children to experience, as St. Paul also wanted those that he served to experience, "what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that [they] may be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:18-19. I want so badly for this to translate into a life of service, love and compassion in my children. With an abundance of resources around us, the temptation to search for information that will give us a formula to create this in our children is so strong. That is why we plan so many "Christian" events and activities in hopes that these things will eventually rub off on our children, not realizing that true heart change cannot be googled, or ordered on Amazon.
As I think back to how I was raised, I realize my parents had no internet (and no, I'm not THAT old). My mom couldn't come up with creative Christian object lessons from Pinterest to teach me some life lesson or find neat prayers to pray for her daughters. I was raised before the idea of "blessing bags" was a fad trending around the holidays. My mom couldn't browse through blogs with "quick fixes" for the challenges she faced as a mother. So how did my parents instill in me the values that I so badly want to see in my own children? Simple. They just lived. After sharing the idea of this blog post to a good friend, her response was, "So true! I swear sometimes I wanted to yell at my children and say 'please stop disturbing me, I'm trying to learn how teach you about Jesus, get you organized, find prayers to pray together and HAVE FUN FAMILY NIGHTS...darn it'...and I'd get so stressed in the process". Long before the age of social media, text messaging, and the buzz words "being intentional" was thrown into every blog that was ever written, there was something called living in the moment. Gandhi's famous quote is so simple, yet so hard to live out in this day and age where we have almost too many resources at our disposal- BE the change you want to see in the world. Don't google it, research it, plan it, or wish it, just BE it. I realize that I've tried so hard to instill values in my children that I, myself, have yet to live out.
When we were younger, my parents would have us pray together as a family before bed. I remember yawning during my mom's long and wordy prayers, but as I got older I began to realize that when my mom prayed, she was actually talking to God. She didn't cater her prayers so that they would be fun and interesting to my sister and I, she didn't get books on how to pray with your kids- she simply prayed. I still remember her specifically praying for wisdom every night (which I thought was such a boring thing to ask for), and now as a mother, I find myself praying for the same exact thing.
My parents also cared deeply for the poor, sick, and those who had newly immigrated to the States from Egypt. Many of our weekends were spent driving around to visit people in hospitals, those who were lonely, and even driving to downtown Detroit to volunteer at soup kitchens and shelters for homeless women. My parents rarely "preached" to us about how its good to visit the sick, care for the poor, or take care of the homeless during the holidays. They simply did it. My sister and I often protested tagging along with my parents on these visits, but really had no choice. They were not concerned about keeping us entertained at every moment, like many of us are now. My parents had a natural heart of service for others. Their life of service wasn't just squeezed into the time they had leftover, or during holidays when it made them feel good. It was part of who they were. My sister and I naturally adopted this spirit of service as we grew older, not because of any lecture, podcast, or blog my parents had listened to about "how to make your kids serve others". We simply followed their lead.
I could give many more examples of different ways my parents taught us by simply by having a genuine and active relationship with God. The most important thing they did that left such a lasting impact on my sister and I's life was pray for us. Just got down on their knees and prayed. These days, I am bombarded with so many resources about praying for my children and raising them, that many of my nights are spent browsing through these things online instead of taking the time to just get down on my knees and pray for the things I'm googling! I remember that during my rebellious teenage years, my mom cut out a picture of my head and taped it onto one of the heads of the sheep in the picture of Christ the Good Shepherd. Many nights, I would find her kneeling before this picture. No matter how many wonderful child rearing books we read, or seminars we attend that give us step by step instructions on raising perfect children, on our knees is where all and any real change will take place- in them and in us.
(To the tune of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror)...So if you want to make your child a better kid, you better look at yourself and make a CHANGE....I believe fully that any change we want to see in our children, any values we want to instill in them, must first be present in us. There is no article, research, or podcast that has ever proved otherwise. BE THE CHANGE.