I lost my cool. I had just about had it with my son's antics. He had only been up an hour, and he just couldn't seem to stay out of trouble. And I let him know my frustrations on the way to school. He had picked yet another fight with his brother, and I was exhausted of his behavior. I lost my cool and began yelling. It was not my finest moment as a mother. And even now I want to justify my actions, but I learned I was just as wrong as he was. As soon as I dropped him and his brother off at car line and drove that 5 minute silent ride back to my house, God spoke to me about as clearly as anyone else could. I was in the wrong. My first thought was I wish I could turn back the clock to early that morning. I wanted to press a "Restart" button. I wanted to try it all over again, but to handle my son's disobedience with a little more grace. I began thinking of how he was beginning to react to me the same way I used to react to my own mother when she would yell and rant at me the same way I did my son: he closed off. I could see it in his eyes. He had learned the art of tuning me out but still look like you are paying attention. I saw my former self in his eyes, and I knew that I had to change my tactics...and my heart.
The funny thing about this world is there are so many times when we want to "Restart" something. We want to be able take back words we have spoken, to redo actions, to give back what we have taken. I wanted so much to take back what I said to my son, but God allows us to make those mistakes so we could learn from them. And ultimately, that learning process will glorify Him. Think of God's creation. He created a perfect, beautiful world. And we humans screwed it up. We made mistakes that caused the rest of creation a lifetime in Paradise. And even as the world progressively got more and more wicked and sinful, He still did not wipe the slate completely clean. Look at Noah. God should have seemed ready to hit the "Restart" button, but He decided to show Grace and allow a way for the world repopulate. All of this lead to God sending his Son, Jesus, to provide a way for all of us to experience Paradise once again. It's not that God learned from His mistakes, because God does not make mistakes, but He does set a good example of showing that Grace can be given to those who are falling short of perfection.
What God reminded me is that there is a time of learning for all of us. There is a time when my kids are going to make me laugh, and then there are times when I want to pull out my hair in frustration. There will be times when I am a good wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend, and then there will be times when I fail at all of those. But each of those times, good and bad, are times when God is teaching me, when He is preparing me and molding me to a better person. He is teaching me that my actions must glorify Him. And as I apologized to my son that afternoon when I picked him up from school, I pray that God was glorified in the words and actions that followed.
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