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We sat in the campus cafeteria and talked about Jesus. I told Cathy about how our sins keep us away from God and why we can’t make our own way back to him. I shared about how Jesus came to save us through his death and resurrection. And when I asked her if she wanted to confess Christ as her Lord and Savior, she said yes.
“Are you sure?”
I was surprised at her eagerness (it was the first time we’d ever met) and I wanted to let her know there would be a cost. It wouldn’t be easy. God said there would be hardships. It would mean obedience to his will. Some say you’d have to be crazy to follow Jesus. She should think more about it.
Yes, she was sure. And, 11 years later, I remember her next words verbatim:
“Because I always knew there was a Lord and that he could save us— I just didn’t know his name.”
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I never thought I’d choose to write. In high school, I complained about English class as I crunched out last minute essays in the school computer lab and in college, I celebrated after taking my last mandatory writing course ever.
But then again, I’ve always written even when I didn’t have to. I’ve “blogged” ever since the days of Asian Avenue (anyone else remember that?) and Xanga (eprops were the pre-Facebook “Likes”). And though, thankfully, those cringeworthy entries about high school crushes and Jess of Gilmore girls are no longer public, I remember enough of my Xanga site to mentally trace a drastic change in content over time. (more…)
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I don’t normally talk to inanimate objects, but there’s this one time I got mad at a flower.
During this particular day, I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for a ride and happened to look down. That’s when it did it. Or at least, that’s when I noticed what it was doing. A tiny flower, no taller than 2 inches or so, had bloomed in the little patch of dirt. It was pretty and colorful and it was just standing there, being all flowery, and as far as I could tell, happily so. I, on the other hand, completely drained and empty inside, exploded, yelling in my mind, “Why do you even exist??!”
Here’s the context: though only in my early 20’s, I was burning out in ministry and probably showing signs of depression. For me, life had been boiled down to what I accomplished in ministry and the purpose of life was being fruitful (ministry-wise). I was laboring for the sake of what I understood as eternal (visible conversions, explicit discipleship), seeing other parts of life as superfluous and worldly, and by the end of two years I was running on fumes.
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One of the more difficult parts of the holidays to navigate is the expectation to make happy memories and for things to be cheery. It doesn’t really make sense that a date on the calendar or a few weeks declared the “holiday season” would magically make things wonderfully happy, but for whatever reason we expect or hope for it which deepens the disappointment when things are not merry and bright— when instead of peace, there is strife in our family and hurting relationships. When there are unfulfilled secret hopes in our hearts or we are in the midst of grieving loss. When we’re burnt out from serving and maybe just tired from normal life and don’t feel particularly Christmas-y.
Personally, this year has been one with great joys and deep sorrows, and in light of this I am meditating on two prayers we can pray this Christmas as we face things we struggle to reconcile with the joyful celebration of Christ’s birth:
Jesus, this is why you came.
Jesus, come again soon.
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Christianity is often portrayed as unable to withstand the weight of reality, and I understand why some people would feel that way. As a younger person, I had a passion to share with others my conviction that the Bible and the Christian faith can more than take on our intellectual doubts. Having had my fair share of questions, I deeply desired for others to feel free to ask questions without thinking that Christians believe use of the mind is antithetical to faith. I still believe that the church should be a safe place to bring our questions about God, but these days, I am experiencing a deepening of another conviction about Christianity and how it relates to reality. Namely, that not only can the Scriptures withstand our intellectual questioning, but that the vision of God and life laid out in it withstands the full range of human experiences, especially suffering.
There are many wrong ways to think about suffering and trial. We may expect that as Christians, we won’t face difficulties because we are children of God, not realizing that Scripture says he disciplines those he loves and that we are meant to receive difficulty as his discipline for our holiness (Heb. 13). We may think of trials as punishment from him, not knowing that the Scriptures say there is no longer any wrath left for those of us who are in Christ (Rom. 8). We may see suffering as meaningless rather than purposefully given to us from a loving Father for our good (Ja. 1, Rom. 5). Or we may not realize that God may be purposing to comfort others even as we suffer and receive his comfort. (2 Cor. 1) We may miss the richness of God’s purposes accomplished through our difficulty in a myriad of ways, so I am grateful for the way that God has been forming my understanding of suffering through theologically sound preachers, teachers, and books.
Lately though, I am finding that as I’ve grown in the knowledge of these rich truths about God’s purpose in our suffering, I have often failed to grasp the full picture given in Scripture and thus erred in the application of some of these truths in my life. Slowly, I have begun to think that since I know these things, my experiences shouldn’t feel as hard and I tend to try to think of hardships clinically and analytically. There has slipped in the subtle wrong view that an understanding of the joyful and glorious final purpose of God in and through our sorrows means I ought not to so sorrowful, and there is a temptation to push through in my own strength.
God is showing me these days through the Scriptures that oftentimes he doesn’t expect or ask me to respond in the way I may feel I ought to. I am experiencing that as one who is struggling, I find good company in the stories and poetry of Scripture, and that there are deeper measures of comfort in it than I had previously thought.
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As I write this, our feverish 2 year old is taking a nap, and our 4 year old is getting ready to shovel 10+ inches of snow with dad. Also, there is a little 18 month old buddy resisting sleep (I just came back from finding him in the crib sitting on a large framed map he’d gotten off the wall) and another 2.5 year old exploring in our family reading room downstairs.
A fly-by of these past few months in the Chang home would include finding out we were pregnant, almost pursuing an adoption, grieving through a miscarriage, Jeff’s ordination and transition to full-time work at GCCSI, and welcoming two new foster brothers into our fold. And with these two precious ones, we have entered into the life of four littles under 5, the foster care system, and the journey of caring for special needs. Yes, we are officially in over our heads.
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Yay! The one time a year where it’s legit to post up old wedding photos. This month, Jeff and I celebrated our five year anniversary. I was thinking I ought to write something reflective, like “Lessons 5 Years Into Marriage” and would have if I had anything particularly insightful to say. But in light of some heavy topics that have been on my mind, I have had occasion again to feel deeply how grateful I am for my husband, and now as he puts the girls to bed, I am blogging about him.
It was twelve years ago this weekend that Jeff and I met. It wasn’t until years later that we’d date, but in the time between, he would have won me over with his kindness and humility. When he led worship or spoke publicly or interacted with me, the thing that would strike my heart most often would be the reality of God’s grace, the aspect of my Christian life that I had the most trouble believing and living in. It wouldn’t be just words either; it happened enough for me to notice that I’d consistently experience God’s grace tangibly in my life through Jeff. He gained my respect without knowing it as I watched him walk through one of the toughest seasons in his life with godwardness and faithfulness. And as I saw him respond to my frequent unkindnesses, I knew that I felt safe around him.
The respect and affections in my heart grew over years without me consciously keeping track of them, but if there were an Aha! moment, for me if would be during a message I watched. The pastor said something about how we ought to date a man who was like someone you’d want your sons to grow up to be or your daughters to marry.
And so we dated, and God brought healing into my life as we did.
Jeff fought for me; letting me know I was beautiful to him, and still treating me with purity, having vowed never to put himself in a position to take anything from me. He spoke God’s forgiveness into areas of shame and guilt and God used him to shed gospel light on my duty-bound heart. He wasn’t (isn’t) perfect, no, but I got to see up close confession and asking for forgiveness and repentance and change. When I wondered aloud about our relationship and told a friend that I believed that at least “he loved me the best he knew how”, she asked “what more could you ask for?” And she was right. My respect for him only grew as long as we dated and were engaged and now, five years post-I-do, it continues to do so.
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Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.Psalm 103:1-5
The coming months are ones of transitions for our family as we step into unknowns on two major fronts. The first one involves changes regarding church and with that, Jeff’s ministry responsibilities. The other is our entering into the world of foster care where we are, God-willing, set to finish the licensing process within a few weeks. Anyone following my blog can see that I write about anxiety a lot, so unsurprisingly, “transition” in my life reads: stomach knots, an incessantly mind-reel of worst-case scenarios, and varied refrains of “what are we doing?” (in a panicky tone). But, as God often does in his unmistakable kind and gentle way, he is speaking words of life afresh to my fearful heart.
Last week, I read a post by blogger Tim Challies on journaling with suggestions from John Flavel. The third and last instruction was not to diminish past difficulties compared to new ones:
Whatever is beside us always appears most significant to us. Just as the land seems to shrink as the sailor sails away from it, so those troubling situations can seem to grow smaller as time increases the distance between them and us. By reading the accounts of God’s mercies you will remember that in the past you have faced dangers just as great and fears just as terrifying. For this reason make sure you do not only record the facts, but also your emotional and spiritual experience of them. Write them as if you will need to cling to them in the future.
With that in the back of my mind, somehow sophomore year of college came up as I remembered how for almost two semesters I struggled with despair and probably depression. It surprised me that I could’ve forgotten about those times, or at least that they’d be so far from my mind that it felt like I’d forgotten. I had forgotten what it was like to not be able to imagine things being different. Not wanting to live and having a hard time finding motivation to get up. To live with self-loathing and a constant voice of accusation in my mind, to feel that sin had the final word in my life and longing so much to be freed from my wretchedness, but not understanding what hope-filled sanctification and living out the gospel could look like. And I had forgotten the way that God miraculously pulled me out of that place of darkness. Later, as I reflected in my new moleskine journal (purchased after reading the aforementioned blogpost!), those memories, along with other accounts in my life of God’s power, salvation, and redemption, renewed my heart of trust in God for the times ahead.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites were rebuked over and over again for their lack of remembrance. Their lack of faith in God in trial was a reflection of the state of their forgetful souls. They forgot the deliverance of God from Egypt and so lamented that God wanted to starve them in the desert, pining for their former lives as slaves. They panicked and created a god of their own to worship when Moses was taking too long to come down Mt. Sinai. They refused to enter into the land of promise because of the bad report of 10 men. The incredulity of the Israelites is almost unbelievable because this wasn’t just about a random person telling them where to go or what to worship. They had seen with their own eyes God’s deliverance, tasted the salt in the air as they walked through a sea that parted for their feet alone and swallowed up their pursuers. They had carried the gold their former masters gave to them as Pharoah finally had them leave after the last of ten mighty acts of God. They had known the works of God, his salvation– and still they did not trust him.
Properly speaking, the Israelites didn’t really forget, did they? They must have had the memory of the experiences, just somehow it didn’t connect to what they believed and thought about God as they faced their more current, pressing situations. Unbelief took root to twist their interpretation of their past, reflecting hearts that didn’t respond to the knowledge of God’s works with an accurate, rightfully earned trust in his character.
And I am seeing once again that I am prone to do the same. I forget that the dangers I faced in the past were just as great, fears just as terrifying as those that I am encountering at present. I forget all that God has shown me about himself in those times and how that remembrance is what I need to strengthen my trust as I face the future.
So, I recall and recount. How God has delivered me from the emptiness that I often felt as a high-schooler. How he brought me through the subsequent times of doubt and questioning. He heard my cries for deliverance from sins I thought were unconquerable and has set me free from the constant cloud of condemnation I used to live out of. He has healed my heart from lies about myself I’d believed for years and carried me through heartbreak over relationships and ministry. He was with me when I was stuck in a shady casino hotel in Las Vegas after missing a connecting flight to LA– a timid new graduate going to join a ministry in a city where I barely knew anyone. He was with me on the gut-wrenching flight and transition back home after the two years I’d grown to love the people I served deeply.
I think about how the years since then have flown by, packed with decisions that carried no risk-free guarantee, but full of blessings immeasurable both seen and unseen. Two daughters and motherhood have brought more things to be fearful about, but breakthroughs in perspectives of and trust in God. Being newly initiated into ministry in the local church, we have already seen God growing us in hope through times of deep discouragement, molding us through the daily grind of learning to pour out our lives on behalf of others because Christ did the same for us. I have seen him redeem places of shame and guilt in my life by taking those experiences and making them the ones that I can most use to minister to others. And I have rejoiced at truth breaking through to others coming out of the same places I had been in, in awe of how he delights to take and use us not just in spite of but because of our brokenness.
What’s most important about these memories are not that I am promised quick deliverance in the future because of them. No, infinitely more precious than that type of guarantee is what I have come to know of my Savior experientially, how I’ve had glimpses and moments of faith becoming sight. I have seen his salvation, experienced the power at work in me that raised Christ from the dead. I have seen his faithfulness to me to carry me through trial and shape my character in ways that I would never be shaped had I gotten exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. I think about how I’m not who I used to be and how if you told me what it would feel like now, living unto God imperfectly but by grace and with joy, living free from the things that bound my heart, living increasingly out of love and not duty or guilt, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine it. And, still, there is more of Christ to know, more of his deliverance to come. These remembrances remind me that he is indeed kind, powerful, good, and worth my life. They take away some of the power of fear of the future over me and even– how is this even possible?– stir in me a new joy, an anticipation of what he will do around, through, and in us as we step into the unknown.
Yes, the very definition of faith is that it does not and can’t see everything, at least not right now. But ours is not a faith ungrounded. On the contrary, it is my unbelief and fearful dread that I ought to question more skeptically in light of all that I have come to see and know of God, not taking my own word of doubt as authoritative. The cross has shown me the greatness of his mercy. The empty grave has proven his power over death and sin. And if I incline my heart to, I can recount the ways I have experienced this love and power in countless ways through the years. It was never, and isn’t now, blind faith that God asks for from his people, from me. Rather it is trust in One who I’ve proven, as we sang on our wedding day, over and over. Oh for grace to remember and trust him more!
On our quote board: “You’ve never failed, and you won’t start now” •••••
Note: As I’ve been thinking through these things, I’ve also been reading Ed Welch’s “Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest.” On a Chapter called “The Manna Principle”, he writes about this idea of trust and remembrance, and much of my thoughts as I’ve written may have what he’s written mixed in there, without me knowing exactly where my thoughts were “original” or from the book. So, I want to give credit where it may be due. And also note that I’ve been helped by the book in how it is getting to some of the root of my anxiety and defanging it.
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My sister posted on her blog this post about why she hasn’t blogged for a while. Aside from the busyness of this season with two little ones and the relatively low place blogging takes on my list of priorities, her first reason is one of my big ones: it feels like I have little to add to the internet blogging world. Sometimes I think if I ever wrote a book, it’d be just a list of books that I wish everyone would read. Or if I really wanted to blog regularly and knew I’d have a following, it would just be links to all the helpful articles that show up in my reader.
But another, more personal reason why I think I fail to write more is because of my reluctance to be exposed as in process. Honestly, I’m afraid of writing something that I’ll look back on with embarrassment. It’s not that I’m afraid of posting content that is inappropriate, but because everything I write comes out of who I am and where I’m at right now, pressing “publish” is like taking a snapshot of myself for the school yearbook. No one’s embarrassed when they receive their school pictures two weeks after they’re taken. They still look just that like, with the same glasses, braces, clothes, and hair. But a few years later, when you’re looking back at junior high, it’s a different story. That’s what it’s like for me and blogging. It’s the things I don’t know now, but will know later that I fear being shown as I write. (As one pastor said in an interview, I know that I’m not right about everything, but if I knew what I was wrong about, I wouldn’t keep thinking it!) I fear looking back at what I write and cringing at my assumptions, tone, naiveté, failure to nuance well, misrepresentation of other views, and prideful self-confidence. I am thankful to have had God grow me in wisdom, particularly in the last two years– that is, growing me to see my own lack of wisdom in the present and starting to learn to think ahead and at least consider, “am I going to look back at myself and how I feel I am SO right and shake my head at my own stubborn foolishness?”
For me, there’s an easy solution to prevent these cringe-worthy records: just don’t blog. There’s wisdom to that, I think– Proverbs says a fool is thought to be wise if he just keeps his mouth shut! And I don’t think anyone regrets not posting more on social media. But the thing is, this issue for me is more than just about blogging. Fear about blogging is just a tiny symptom of a life-long struggle (and, as a sidenote, possibly will be a small way to resist it).
I’ve never been a “process” person. Just get me to where/who/what I’m supposed to be, and then I can tell you about what it was like getting there. I think some would say that is perfectionism? I would say it’s probably one part personality, one part culture/upbringing, and many many parts pride. Wanting to appear better than I am, or at least not to show how I am weak. And exposed “snapshots” of myself scare me, not primarily in blogging, which is limited in scope and impact, but in relationships with people around me. As much as I shake my head at what I may have blogged about in high school, that regret or embarrassment doesn’t compare to the ways I look back at what I’ve done in friendships, or wrongly counseled, or foolishly said with zealous confidence. Most of it is the regret of hurting others. But, unfortunately, part of it is that embarrassing, self-conscious knowledge that someone else has seen my not-A-game, in-process, self.
I am often challenged when I think about Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to let all see his progress (1 Timothy 4:15). That means that he would have to allow them to see him not just as an end product, but him, not-yet-finished-Timothy, all the way through. I think I have had a pretty strong and self-conscious filter throughout life, and if left to my own I would probably be on my own, unexposed. But, but, (thank God!), but… I haven’t been allowed to be on my own. I have been born into a family that doesn’t give me that option– the family of God– where I can’t just go off the radar and where I’m seeing people every week as I serve, and parent, and face all that is what we call “life”.
Having the people of God around me and having relationships to look back on has been the hardest and best thing. It’s embarrassing thinking about those who “knew me when” and can recall certain things I said, how I prayed, what I did. More than that, it’s frustrating at times, God allowing me to go on my own enough to start falling apart and then in a tangible way, needing people around me. It’s tough being over my head with service, not doing things as well as I’d like, and with things falling through the cracks, needing to receive grace and forgiveness from others. It’s hard knowing that my weaknesses, sins, and blindspots affect those around me and knowing that they probably (definitely?) see more of me than I wish they did, even in the small interactions I have with and around them. It’s testing being seen as I parent, now that my capacity to self-filter is at a record low. But having the people of God around me continually in life is the most often overlooked and at the same time one of the greatest channels of grace in my life. That’s because as I relate with the people of God, I am being placed in relationships where I am who I am and no more than that. I am being forced to learn to glory in my weakness, to be a jar of clay, to find grace for my my not-yet self and encouragement that I am not yet who I will be.
Isn’t that amazing though? I should think about it more this way– the very fact that I can look back and say that I’m not who I used to be is a testimony to the power of God to change me. The fact that others put up with me when I wasn’t who I was supposed to be (and should I say, put up with me now though I don’t yet see why that would be so hard!) is to be received as grace from God through the kindness of others. That others can look at who I was and who I am and see a difference is meant to bring glory to the God who is bringing all his people from one degree of glory to the next. That some would come to me and say they have ever been blessed by God through me or that I am being used by God in their lives now is an absolute miracle in light of the weaknesses I had then that I now see. There is an experiential conviction that anything good done through me must have been the hand of God because he alone can display the glory of Christ through imperfect servants. And lastly, the fact that I kind of know I’ll end up embarrassed looking back at myself in a few years means that I am anticipating being changed by God– growing in maturity, growing in Christlike humility and understanding, seeing myself and others more clearly, and most importantly, knowing God more intimately.
It’s that I’m not yet who I will be that keeps me from wanting to show who I am right now. But that’s what I need to let you see so that in a few years, and in the ages to come, our God will receive all the praise and glory he deserves for the work he is able to bring about in one such as I. So, here’s looking forward to looking back and smiling, hopefully graciously, at a younger, less mature self. But oh there is more– here’s looking forward to Holy Spirit-wrought change, ever-increasing glory, and as there always has been, much, much more grace.
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As a new parent, I remember hearing someone say that our greatest comfort is that the two things we tend to worry about most– our children’s physical wellbeing and the spiritual state of their souls are not, ultimately, under our control. After having visited the ER with our first daughter for stitches, finding a baby at the top of the stairs with an open gate multiple times, an “I did not see that one coming” accident last week, and many more close calls, I have been experiencing how true that first bit is. It’s good to know that God is ultimately in control of the health and safety of my children when I start seeing how, try as I might, there are a thousand potentially harmful situations out there that I haven’t taken into account. (Seriously, after becoming parents, Jeff and I often comment how it is a miracle that any of us have lived to adulthood!) I desire my children to be healthy and safe, and though I may have deep fears about disease, sickness, and accidents, knowing that I don’t control it but God does has brought some measure of peace to my otherwise worry-wired heart.
But Jeff and my greatest desire for our children is not that they would be healthy and live long lives, which is why we may be tempted to worry about that second part– the spiritual state of their souls. Our greatest desire and prayer for our girls is that they would love God and love people. We want them to know God personally, to trust him with their whole hearts, to taste the sweetness of being in relationship with him, and to count everything else as loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. We want them to be driven by one passion– his glory– and to commit their lives, with joy, to live, and even be willing to suffer and die for the cause of the gospel. And we want more than anything for this to come out of a heart that is made new by God. This isn’t about being good church going kids, moral people, or having “prayed the prayer” at one point in their lives. We pray that God would work and that we would see fruit of obedience out of love for God stemming from new, Holy Spirit wrought hearts. Hearts that are awakened by the Holy Spirit to put faith in the saving work of Christ and do and desire things that dead hearts never could. We want them to know his love and have their lives marked by a deep experiential knowledge of grace. Our commitment to the gospel and personal experience of it in life is that it is the good news that God isn’t in the business of making bad or good people better, but dead people alive, and we pray and plead with God that he would bring this about in our children even now.
In recent years as I have come to love this gospel more deeply, I have been made undone over and over again with gratitude for God’s sovereign choice to make me, once dead, alive. I know, not just because of teachings about Biblical interpretation or theology, but in the depths of my being that had not God opened my eyes to see and value him, I would not, and am left with trembling awe at the thought. The sovereign will of God in initiating and bringing about salvation has been a source of great gratitude, joy, and humility in my life, but in recent years as a parent, somehow it shifted into a subtle source of fear, not verbalized even in my mind, but still there. The question lurking there and that if thought about enough would bring tears: What if God doesn’t choose to save my children? And so, the knowledge of sovereign grace that has brought me joyful gratitude considering my own life has started to wear away and burden me as a mom. That is, it did until a few weeks ago, when I was brought low in my own eyes that God’s mercy may be lifted up.
It has been a consistent set of those “fail” weeks, that are not just a general “I’m a bad mom” feeling, but ones where I know what I’m doing wrong, how I’m being unkind, and still have not changed. It’s been a stripping-away week of pride in my abilities to parent and I am, by the grace of God, being brought to the end of myself again and again. With clarity I saw a few weeks ago that I was doing so many of the things I never wanted to as a mom. I was, and still am more than I ought, comparing, speaking out of irritation, overly concerned about the opinions of others (too strict? not strict enough?), being inconsistent, and other things that, if left unchanged, would mean that our family would be on the road to being one full of fear, bitterness, ungratefulness, and hurt. It was in the midst of feeling the weight of my failure and as I thought about the hearts of my girls, anxious and unable to sleep, that the thought came clearly to me: Do I want my girls to be at the mercy of my parenting, or at the mercy of God? That was the turning point for me from anxious grief to joyful trust and rest (and with that, thankfully, sleep).
This was the question that cast a light on my prideful fear and offered me a chance to step into grateful, humble trust. Do I want my girls to be at the mercy of my parenting, or at the mercy of God? In other words: Do I want their futures– and namely the state of their hearts, whether or not they love Jesus, and where they will be for eternity– to be at the mercy of my ability to be the right kind of godly mom? Me, inconsistent at best, and love them as I may, still selfish and still foolish at times? Or do I want them to be at the mercy of God who is abounding in love and mercy, unchanging, able, and willing?
Up until feeling the increasing weight of my own failure to know and do what is right as a mom, I was unconsciously saying I’d rather have the first be the case. This showed in my fear of God’s sovereign choice and of our complete need for him to do the heart change, granting us faith to make us alive in him (aka “monergism”). I’d rather be told and taught what to do and pray, or at least how to have the right heart, attitude, and guiding principles, and then be able to say that through those means, I’ll know my girls will love God and live for him. It’s subtle because I would never have said that through having right rules or teaching, I could change their hearts. But still, underneath it all, there was a fundamental trust in the choices I’d make as a parent– my own strictness or non-strictness, in how much I discipline or give grace, in how consistent or how flexible I am, and in my own ability to love God. With trust in self high, my heart says “What?? I could do everything right and my kids still could reject God and be messed up? How scary and unfair.” And though I’d never say that out loud, it shows in my fear that a sovereign, powerful God could “undo” or work against all that I do right and well. His election and grace and mercy in it are begrudgingly assented to, but not rejoiced in.
But with a realistic taste of my own self as a mom, sinner, and imperfect and unable to produce the type of family that I desire– with a picture painted of what my family would really look like were it all up to me– God’s sovereign mercy and grace brings about a completely different reaction. It’s “What?? I can do everything wrong and my kids still have a chance of loving God?? THANK GOD THERE IS HOPE!” Like the parable of the workers, I begin to see myself as one of those who have worked much less in the day but still have been paid more than I deserve, and I walk away in awe of mercy given at the free will of the owner of the field.
It’s not that I think I can do whatever and it doesn’t matter what I do as a mom because, hey, God is in control! I, as a mom and as a person will answer to God one day for everything I do and say. I want to do what’s right by him. I also don’t want my children to have baggage to carry, (too many) issues to work through because of me, or to have a twisted view of who God is because of my inaccurate portrayal of him in their lives. Those things go without saying. But I have seen God work in the family I was raised in to bring about gospel reconciliation and change– he still is doing that now. And one of the greatest witnesses to me and others through our family has been not what was done right by us, but how God is still making us new and how there is hope in the gospel to heal. Through that, one of my core values and hopes in life is that in the same way my family now, with my own children, would be a picture of gospel grace. Not just that we would be known as people who are gracious or that we would experience grace through one another, but that people looking at us would see that indeed that God is a gracious God to have had mercy on ones such as us. To know that he had mercy on us, the worst of sinners, so that “Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” (1 Tim. 1:16 ESV) And so, I am needing to repent of the ways I have been standing on my own merit, trusting our own family’s standards or hoping in parenting methods and advice, instead of falling on the mercy of our exceedingly merciful, compassionate, gracious, and sovereign God.
Reading through the Bible about families used to scare me. All these godly people having evil children, especially seen starkly in the lines of the kings. And yet, maybe that’s because I was thinking of myself as on the wrong side? Elisabeth Elliot quotes Thomas Fullerin in her book, Gateway To Joy:
Lord, I find the genealogy of my Savior strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations. (1) Reheboam begat Abijah; that is, a bad father begat a bad son. (2) Abijah begat Asa; that is, a bad father begat a good son. (3) Asa begat Jehosaphat; that is, a good father a good son. (4) Jehoshaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father a bad son. I see, Lord, from hence that my father’s piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.
Good news for my children indeed.
So we still plead–for new hearts, for mercy, but not in fear but in faith with gratitude. We put kindling around them– teaching, loving, disciplining, instructing, repenting– and we pray, pray, pray for the Holy Spirit to send fire. If you would, pray for our kids that they would love and know him and be given new hearts to trust him? Praise God for his sovereign grace. There is hope for them and hope for me.
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Keeping Heart 