Back to School Musings
As I write this, I can smell the cooled remnants of my morning coffee and taste it going stale on my breath. I can feel my daughter mindlessly swipe past my arm, and I listen to her breathing while she wiggles in the seat next to me, watching a cartoon on her tablet. I can see Ahsoka at our feet providing silent comfort to us; she smells damp from all this rain we’ve been having. I can hear the air conditioning running both upstairs and flowing up from our basement; I typically hate that sound, but I can’t stand to leave this spot. To be away from Norah for one minute feels like letting go, but I’m not ready yet. Today is the eve of her first day of first grade.
We have plans for making this day special, but that does little to distract me from the facts. It’s all I have to cling to as comfort. If I know the facts, I can usually rally my emotions around them and let that inform how I feel. USUALLY.
Being a mother seems to render all of these normal coping mechanisms useless, though. Our brains go to mush from unconditional love for these people we grew in our bodies and now train to be the best versions of themselves when they leave our homes.
Mothers see our children as more than heartbeats and sticky hands (even when they’re whiny). We look at them and we see promise: We look at them and see hope for a future different from the madness of the present.
We think if we just do x and y right, manipulate the variables from our experiences in childhood, using our adulthood and progress as a control group, we can have an end result of a perfect human, ready to charge into whatever they do to be the very best. And we observe our children through the lens of our childhood - this form of discipline didn’t work for me and this is what I struggle with now, so if we try that style of parenting, maybe they won’t resent me when they’re an adult. And we put so much pressure on ourselves to raise them in a way that’s disciplined but not resentful, grateful for all we do for them, but autonomous on their own to walk their own path.
All of that sounds great, but when we put the entire success and failure on our own shoulders, taking every misstep as a blow to our ego, could we be missing the mark?
Where is God in these moments of striving to make a better life for our children? Is God more than a name we utter in exasperation? Is God more than a name we throw around, “So help me…”?
The Bible says that God is working in us to will and to do what is pleasing to Him. When Jesus returned to the Father in Heaven, He said He would not leave us without help - and on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles and enabled them to carry the name of Jesus and His Gospel into the whole world.
Maybe you’re like me and sometimes you feel discouraged like, “Yeah, well, that was in what? AD 30-something? And that was to spread the Gospel into all the world. I’m just raising a kid. Not really the same thing.”
You’re right. It’s not the same exact thing. But remember how you came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? By hearing the Gospel. The Gospel is never a one time for all time message that we respond to with a bowed head and raised hand and we’re good to go.
No, the Gospel has power. The Gospel’s power is that it reminds us when we forget. The Gospel’s power is that it is The Good News.
The Good News is this: Jesus, the Son of God, came and dwelt among us. He lived a life that was holy and pleasing to God, fulfilling all of the law of Moses, innocent before God and man. And yet, he was tried and condemned to be crucified. He accepted the penalty for sin - death. And then after three days, he rose again.
After Jesus’s resurrection, as he was ascending to the Father, He charged the disciples: Go into all the world telling them the Good News. And know I am with you always, even until the end of the age (Matthew 28). And it was at Pentecost that the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to go and fill that charge.
Your child is “all the world”.
You are “all the world”.
What do I mean? I mean, as we head back into the school year, as we feel the challenges grow, the schedule pulls in so many directions, the different fears and discomforts that this age brings, remember the Good News.
Tell yourself and your family the Good News and pray. Remind yourself and your family that they are a child of God, and they are beloved, not for anything they have done or could do. Not for all of our striving and trying desperately hard to give our children a better life and make them into a functional adult in our society, first, they are a beloved child of God, He loves them, and He is with us.
May the God of peace cover you in the peace and power of the Gospel to carry his name in your homes and into all the world. May peace be with you.
