Tag Archives: Mentoring Monday

Non-Conforming Parenting

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 9

WholeHeartedAt first glance, this chapter on “The WholeHearted Learning Youth” isn’t exactly applicable to our family right now (since our oldest is only 6).  It provided a lot of food for thought about how I want to approach the years ahead, but much of it was just wisdom to file away for later.

One thing that stood out to me, however, was the issue of conforming to the world’s ways, not just culturally, but also educationally.  Am I making decisions based on what the world says my children’s education should look like, or am I allow God to be our guide?  My “Word for 2014,” PRAY, has helped me develop a habit of turning to the Lord for things I have previously just managed on my own.  The Clarksons reminded me that I also need to be seeking the transforming of my mind through the Scriptures.  In their discussion of Romans 12:1-2 they write:

“…Go to God’s Word to keep your mind renewed by truth.  The real power of God’s Word is not just that it’s true and trustworthy, but that it transforms–it is the ‘living and active’ Word that penetrates and changes ‘soul and spirit’ and ‘thoughts and attitudes’ (Hebrews 4:12).  The only way to know you are doing God’s will as a parent is to constantly renew your mind with God’s truth.  You become a conformist to the world’s ways of thinking by default; you become a biblical idealist only by design” (page 172, emphasis mine).

In my current season of life it is hard to find time to spend in the Word, at least to the extent that I have in the past.  I find myself grabbing snatches here and there: a few paragraphs from the open Bible I leave on the bathroom counter when I manage to catch a few uninterrupted moments, verses taped above my kitchen sink that I can meditate on as I do dishes, and maybe a few chapters during naptime when I’m feeling particularly starved (provided all four children actually stay in their beds for an extended period of time).  Yet I must cling to those scraps of Scripture if I have any hope of being the godly parent I want to be.

My children will only be young for so long.  I want to use these years as effectively as possible, both as far as training and instructing my children “in the words and ways of biblical Christianity” (page 174), and renewing my own mind with God’s truth.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!

Appreciating Each Child’s Uniqueness

 Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 8

WholeHeartedGrowing up, my dad and I often butted heads as our iron wills came into conflict.  I felt like an oddball in our family, like no one understood me.  As I grew up, however, I realized that part of the reason my dad and I got so passionate in our disagreements was because we were actually alike in many ways.  By the time I was a teenager we had developed a healthy respect for each other’s strength, and disagreement between us became quite rare.

Chapter 8 was about personality and learning styles.  As I read through it I kept jotting down the names of people in our family who were described so well in certain sections.  Some of those descriptions don’t resonate with my own personality at all, but I see them in my husband or some of our children.  Oftentimes those are the things about them that frustrate me the most, especially when it comes to educating children who think or react to the world so differently than I do myself.

I think one of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is appreciation for the unique person God has created them to be.  My two older sons are incredibly different from one another, and I want to make sure they know that that’s not only okay, but it’s a good thing.

untitled shoot-099Elijah is very gifted with numbers, and at times it has driven Ian to tears when his younger brother comes up with answers to his math problems before he even gets a chance to start working them out.  But I remind him that we are all unique, and each of our strengths are important for specific things.  God has gifted Ian in ways that will prepare him for the work he can do for His kingdom, fulfilling a purpose that Elijah wouldn’t be able to do.

untitled shoot-119I want my children to have the self-confidence of knowing that God created every part of them, even their personalities and learning styles.  And just as they are uniquely valuable, so is each person they meet, created by God in a particular way to be used by Him for His own glory.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!

 

Our Home Library

    Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 7

WholeHeartedOh, what a dangerous chapter this was!  I have been building a personal library since I was a child, and the Clarksons have now helped me justify my compulsion to fill our home with good books.

“A growing home library is absolutely essential for a WholeHearted Learning approach to home education… Just remember, books are an investment.  They have intellectual asset value.  They are nonconsumable curricula that can be used with every child, then with their children, and passed on to succeeding generations.  Books are worth it” (page 128).

AMEN!

Some things in Educating the WholeHearted Child have challenged me as they exposed my inadequacies.  Others have encouraged me as I see things I am already doing (or at least heading toward).  But I doubt there will be any other standards in this book that I even come close to attaining to the extent that I have already met their challenge to build up a family library.

So rather than a lengthy post, I thought I’d share some pictures.  These are only the “tidy” book areas, because as Margaret E. Sangster said (quoted in the sidebar on page 130), “To the genuine lover of books no house is completely furnished which has not a good many of them, not arranged formally in one room, but scattered all over the house.” There are several baskets (and stacks) that didn’t make it into any pictures.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve probably already seen our main library in the school room:

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But I don’t think I’ve ever shared what our living room wall looks like:

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That still wasn’t enough space for me so here’s the entrance to our guest room:

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And a little back corner of the guest room (with 2 shelves in double rows, and yes, that box on the right and the one underneath it are filled with books, as are the cupboards under the shelf):

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And of course the kids have little mini-libraries in their room.  Here’s Arianna’s shelf (minus the books in her bed):

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And here’s the boys’ shelf:

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I know it doesn’t look like much, but that’s because their beds usually look like this:

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I cleared out Ian’s bed this week and it had to have had at least 30 books in it.  But I’m not complaining.  I’m too busy bursting with pride!  Yes, it’s a sickness, and I think it’s contagious.

I love this sidebar quote from Henry Ward Beecher on page 129: “No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.  It is a wrong to his family.  He cheats them! … It is a man’s duty to have books.  A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life.”

I don’t know if I’d go that far, it’s nice to know I’m not alone in my desire to surround my children (literally) with good books.  And I don’t think there’s any danger of them being cheated in this way!

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!

 

Go and Make Disciples… Starting at Home

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 6 (part 2)

WholeHeartedIn the years before I got married I spent countless hours with other people’s children as both a classroom teacher and children’s ministry worker.  I felt driven by a passion to disciple the children God brought into my life, but there was always a certain amount of frustration for me.  No matter what I did during the hours I had with those precious souls, in the end I sent them home to those God had called to be the main “disciplers” in their life: their parents.  I longed for the day when I would have my own children to guide and influence.

Jesus didn’t have a casual relationship with his disciples where he met with them for an hour a week, or even an hour a day.  They spent pretty much every hour together.  Sometimes he verbally instructed them.  Sometimes he modeled the ministry of the kingdom of God.  But no matter what method he was employing, they were constantly learning and growing more like him.

When Jesus ascended to heaven, he left his disciples with instructions to follow his example, only now they were going to be the teachers.  “Go therefore and make disciples… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).  That commission has been passed from generation to generation.  Our pastor often characterizes it as “disciples making disciples.”  As parents, the most obvious place to start fulfilling this commission is with our children, who spend almost every hour with us much like Jesus’ disciples did with him.

This is my passion.  It is what I longed for during those years in classrooms and children’s ministry.  Now that I have my own children, I want to use the hours, days, months, and years to disciple them as fully as I am able.

“It is natural and normal for children to look to you for their moral, social, spiritual, and intellectual direction and to want to stay with their parents until they are grown.  It is unnatural and abnormal to believe others should or must raise your children for you and to divide your child’s heart between home and family and other authorities” (page 111).

I’m always a bit taken aback when people express surprise and awe at my wanting to keep my children home with me rather than sending them off to school for someone else to take care of.  “I’d go crazy,” they say.  “You must be Supermom!”  The idea of children spending a large part of their day away from their parents in school has become so normal in our society that we might not even stop to question it.

However, think about how God created families.  Nowhere in Scripture is there a basis for educating children apart from home and family.  I’m not Supermom.  I’m just walking out motherhood the way it was originally designed, spending each day with my children, instructing them and training them in the things God has taught me.  I am so thankful for the ministry He has given me at home, discipling these four precious souls and teaching them how to follow Jesus.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!

Homeschooling a Child’s Heart, Mind, and Spirit

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 6

WholeHeartedIf you are at all confused by all the different ways of homeschooling that you read about, this chapter alone is probably worth the cost of the entire book.  The Clarksons do a wonderful job of explaining the differences between curriculum-centered, content-centered, child-centered, and home-centered approaches to homeschooling, even breaking down those four main categories into smaller divisions and giving examples of well-known books, curriculum, and authors that follow each method.

I’ve been reading about homeschooling since my oldest was a baby, and it’s taken that long to sort through all the information and advice that is out there to get to the point where I feel fairly settled as far as what methods I want to draw from and what I want our educational experience to look like.  This chapter really helped me organize all that information in away that made sense and helped me evaluate the choices I have made.

“Homeschooling is not only about one part of your child’s life, as though you can raise a mind; it is about their whole life—heart, mind, and spirit.  Whatever model you choose, make sure it enables you to raise a whole child” (page 96).

Part of why I wanted to homeschool was to help my children to experience God in every part of their life rather than mentally filing spiritual matters into a separate category from academic subjects, sports, music, and anything else that occupies their minds and hearts.  My own experiences growing up were always so divided.  I chose to follow Christ when I was 14, and I distinctly remember feeling so proud when I gave any thought to God on a day other than Sunday.  He wasn’t a part of our conversations at home, and I attended public school until I went to college, so it took a lot of intentionality on my part to bring Christ into every part of my life.

I love being able to point my children to God as we go through our days, whether reading classic literature, exploring the world around us, or interacting with kids in the neighborhood or at their gymnastics class.  I want to be focused on God not just at church, but in our home.  I want homeschooling to be a lifestyle, a mentality that guides us throughout our day, not just for a few hours each morning as we get through our schoolwork.  I want to raise my children to be Christ-centered learners whose quest for knowledge brings them closer to God because they see His hand in everything they do.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!

Creating Self-Motivated Learners

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 5 (Part 2)

WholeHearted If someone asked me to point out the main differences between children educated at home and those in traditional schools, the notion of self-motivated learning would be high on my list.  As a product of public schooling myself, as well as a former teacher, I have seen all too often how schools seem to kill children’s natural curiosity rather than nurture it.  I’m not saying it happens to every child, and it certainly doesn’t happen immediately.  However, by the time children reach high school, their primary motivation throughout the school day is more likely to be achieving a certain grade or meeting a graduation requirement than actually learning.

I was one of the lucky exceptions.  While I certainly knew how to play the grade game and went through my school career (at least pre-college) with that sort of mindset, I was fortunate to maintain a love for learning.  I spent hours pursuing my own interests, eager to satiate my hunger for knowledge.  When I could combine school and learning, I did.  In my senior year of high school we were told to write a 12-page research paper on a topic of our choice.  My latest fascination was the canonization of the Bible, and I threw myself into the assignment with such gusto that the final product was a 16-page paper that earned me an A++ and a comment from my English teacher proclaiming it to be “a Master’s thesis!”

I remember being so thrilled that I could spend my time learning about something that interested me and having it count as schoolwork.  What a sad commentary on our school system!  I knew several families at my church who were part of the early Christian homeschool movement, so several kids in my youth group had grown up being homeschooled, and I was so envious that much of their education had looked like this.  I decided way back then that if at all possible, I was going to homeschool my own children.

“The ultimate purpose of true education is to create a strong foundation for a lifetime of learning… A child with a positive learning attitude will naturally be come a self-motivated learner and will more quickly become a self-educating student” (page 90).

I love watching my children take delight in learning.  When I see them scouring our overflowing bookshelves for a book about some particular subject they want to know more about, I cannot help but smile.  There are few things I enjoy more than seeing them come across something we’ve learned about as they go about their everyday lives and light up as they experience the satisfaction of feeling connected to the world around us.

The other day I wanted to find something to watch while I sat nursing the baby, so I put on the first episode of America: The Story of Us, and Ian ended up watching much of it with me.  It touched on several things we had talked about before, like the Pilgrims and the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and he was so fascinated we ended up watching it twice.  It stirred up a desire in him to revisit some of what we had done a few months ago, and today as he watched an episode of Liberty’s Kids, he called me over and rewound it so he could show me the engraving Paul Revere had done of the Boston Massacre, which had been mentioned in the documentary we had watched together.

I love that at 6 years old he is getting a thrill out of making connections between things he hears about history when he comes across them in various places!  I hope that as the years pass and his eyes are opened to more of the world around him that he will be just as excited about digging deeper and learning more about history, the Bible, science, famous people, literary treasures, and anything else that peaks his interest.  If he has that “positive learning attitude,” then no matter what gaps we may leave in his education over the next twelve years, he will be more than adequately equipped to set out on a lifetime of learning.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!

Building “Mental Muscles” for the Years Ahead

 Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 5

WholeHeartedOh, I’m loving this chapter!  Up until now this book has been primarily challenging me and making me ever so aware of my weaknesses (not in a bad way, but it was making me tired just thinking about how far I am from being the mom I want to be).  Chapter 5, however, is right up my alley.  When the Clarksons first described their three “biblical priorities for a Christian home” back in Chapter 1 (home nurture, home discipleship, and home education), I knew right away that the third one is my strongest area at this point.  So I found this chapter encouraging, like having a minute to take a few deep breaths and enjoy a more level stretch after a tough climb uphill.

The idea of growing and exercising “mental muscles” in the areas of language, appetites, habits, curiosity, creativity, reason, and wisdom is one of the main things that is (or at least can be) different about home education in comparison with a traditional school setting.

“The true test of a child’s education is not what they know at any one time relative to what other children know (or don’t know).  It is whether or not the child is growing stronger in all of the most important learning skills–the skills that enable them to acquire knowledge, insight, and ability and to educate themselves independently” (page 75).

The school system has become so focused on testing what children have learned that it neglects to attend to the more important question of whether or not they know how to learn.  Rather than have my children be able to regurgitate a bunch of facts on a test, I want them to have a never-quite-satiated hunger for knowledge and to know how to feed that longing by seeking out the answers to the questions in their minds, whether those questions stem from circumstances in which they find themselves, things they stumble across in books, or simply from their own curiosity.

So we try to fill our children’s lives with rich experiences.  We surround them with quality books, music, and art.  We introduce them to the wonders of God’s world and the marvelous things that people are doing in it.  We try to teach them good mental habits so that they will be able to more fully experience and appreciate all these things.  We encourage curiosity and help them explore and build their knowledge about the things that interest them.

This is what we think education should look like.  I try to stay away from worksheets and busy work (unless it’s something my children are desiring at the moment).  I’d much rather read a good book to them and then talk about what we read.  I can always tell when we start to slip back into “school” mode, because it starts to feel like work.  When we are focused more on their hearts and those “mental muscles,” our school time is just a rich enjoyable learning experience together.

The most important part of all this, however, is not the pleasure we and our children get from learning now.  I try to keep the future in mind, remembering that I am preparing my children for a lifetime of learning.  I won’t always be by their sides to guide them, so I want to use these years to teach them how to teach themselves.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).

Parenting in the Power of the Holy Spirit

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 4 (part 2)

WholeHeartedThis chapter continued to convict my spirit and challenge me in my parenting, particularly the pages on discipline.  It is such a temptation to seek a formula for parenting that will ensure that the end result will be wise children who walk with the Lord.  Yet even with our oldest being only 6 years old, it is quite clear that formulas just don’t work when it comes to nurturing a little person uniquely created by God.  Why is it then, that when facing a parenting dilemma, my first thought is to run to a book?  (And not THE Book, either.)

“If my first impulse is to think about which proven method of discipline will achieve the results I want with my children, then I am probably not thinking about trusting God to change my children’s hearts… If I want my correction to impact my child’s heart, I must first, before anything else, ask God, the heavenly parent, to be involved in the process with me” (page 64).

I’m ashamed to admit it, but this thought never even occurred to me until I started reading Heartfelt Discipline, also by Clay Clarkson.  When I came across this idea, however, it really impacted me.  I’ve written before about my “word for 2014” being PRAY, and this is one of those areas of life where I want to be more consistent about coming before the Lord prior to making decisions or taking action.  I want my children to leave home remembering it as a place where they experienced the grace of God and the joy of obedience, not just a lot of rules and punishment for disobedience.  What better way to pass on grace to our children then to go first to the grace-Giver?  “Grace ensures that your correction begins with the ‘inner man’ of your child.  That is the real goal of spiritual discipline–to change your child’s heart so their behavior is changed from the inside out” (page 64).

That’s what I really want: changed hearts, not resentful obedience.  These words were on my heart today as I dealt with one of my children who has been particular stubborn and slow to obey lately.  Eric and I have been at a loss for how to parent him in a way that touches his heart and makes him want to obey.  So this morning as he stood there scowling at me, refusing to pick up even a single piece of laundry after I had asked him to sort a small basketful, I set aside my own frustration and the desire to just threaten punishment in order to get him to obey.  I let go of my own agenda and opened myself up to direction from the Lord.  What was going to reach this little one’s heart?  What was going to help him choose to do something he didn’t want to do?

I called him over to me, put my arm around him, and tried to get him to talk to me.  Why didn’t he want to help fold the laundry?  No answer.  So I decided to talk about the heart issue.  We’ve just started using We Choose Virtues so we’ve been talking about choices we can make and what it means to obey.  I reminded him of Proverbs 20:11, which says, “Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.”

Then I asked him, “What do you want people to know about you?  Your ‘acts’ tell people about what kind of boy you are.  Do you want to be a boy people look at and say, ‘Wow, he’s really stubborn and doesn’t obey his mommy.  He just stands there scowling.’?”  He stared into my eyes.  “Or do you want them to say, “Look how obedient he is!  He’s so quick to do what his mommy asks!’?”  He nodded his head. (And inwardly I sighed in relief knowing at least he cared a little!)

I decided to try to make it a game.  I told him, “I’m going to count to 10, and I want you to see how many pieces of laundry you can get sorted before I’m finished, okay?”  He just stood there glaring at me with his infamous furrowed brow.

So I called him back over to me and basically repeated the same talk again before sending him back to the basket.  This time he managed to get 3 pieces of laundry sorted before I got to 10.  I chose to ignore the fact that he had done it slowly and still had that pout on his face.  Instead, I praised him for choosing to do it even when he didn’t want to and told him, “Let’s try it again.  I bet you can get even more this time!”  He got 8.

Now my other helper was itching to get in on the game so we let him take a turn.  It took two more rounds of counting to ten, but all the laundry got sorted and the bad attitude dissipated.  They both even managed to get their own laundry folded and put away without a single word of objection or nasty look.

Would it have been faster to just punish him?  Undoubtedly.  Yet I certainly wouldn’t have reached his heart that way.  This took a lot longer, but it left all of us feeling content.  My son felt the satisfaction of knowing he had chosen to obey and that I was proud of him for making that choice.  I felt relieved that I hadn’t responded emotionally but had let the Holy Spirit guide me.  I didn’t stop and pray (though next time I might try doing so out loud), but I did keep my own impulses in check so that I could walk in His power.  (And the laundry got sorted, which certainly makes me happy!)

I don’t always handle this kind of situation very well, but I would much rather be a spirit-led parent than a flesh-led parent.  The Clarksons’ words have been “ringing in my ears” since I read them last night: “When you confront and correct your children’s wrongdoing, think about how Jesus would speak to them.  He would be gentle, but authoritative; loving, but truthful; gracious, but firm” (page 65).  That’s what I long for.  That’s what I want my children to experience.  And so I will keep trying to turn to Him first, to trust in Him to help me learn to “parent in the power of the Holy Spirit” (page 64).

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Discipleship: Walking the Path of Life

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 4

WholeHearted“The path, or way, is an analogy for life that almost any child can understand from a very early age, and one that becomes even more meaningful and internalized as they get older.  The power for young children is in the concreteness of the image it evokes.  They can understand in an uncomplicated way that they need to stay on the path God has provided for them in order to be safe from evil and harm…” (page 58).

I love this analogy of the path of life.  It is a beautiful picture of walking in God’s ways, and it helps me see more clearly my role as a parent.  “You walk with your children on the path, and they look to you to be their guide” (page 58). This is something I can do.  Day by day walking in His ways, looking to Him for direction, doing our best to stay on the path.

“As Christian parents, you are the guides that God has appointed for your children.  He trusts you to be able to do the job–there is no heavenly hand-wringing wondering if he has chosen the best guides for your children” (page 59). I know this, but sometimes I really need the reminder.  God knows my failings.  He knows my weaknesses.  He knows where I am prone to stray off the path.  And yet he thought Eric and I were the best guides for Ian, Elijah, Arianna, Nicholas, and any other children with whom He may bless us in the future.

This chapter impressed upon me the importance of showing sympathy to my children.  As I read the Clarksons’ definition of sympathy when it comes to parenting, I realized this was exactly what I felt like I had missed as a child.  “Sympathy was… the willingness to understand and validate a child’s thoughts or feelings, in order to create a channel to the inside of that child’s heart” (page 60).  As soon as I became a mother, I determined that I never wanted my children to feel as alone, misunderstood, and unimportant as I had felt as a child.

Sometimes when Ian goes on and on about motorcycles or monster trucks or other things that bring him great delight I catch myself saying (or at least thinking), “I really don’t care.”  But that’s not the message I want to send to him.  I couldn’t care less about these boyish wonders, but I do care about Ian.  If I want to reach his heart with the things that are important to me, I need to make sure I have opened that channel by listening to the things that are important to him.  When it comes to encouraging him to stay on the path of life, he is much more likely to listen to me if I have made a point of being a willing listener to whatever childish fancies are floating through his mind and heart.
Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page. 

Home Nurture: It All Starts in MY Heart

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 3 (Part 2)

WholeHeartedAs they closed this chapter the Clarksons reminded us that “it all starts in your heart” (page 54) and “it all ends in your child’s heart” (page 56).  Pardon the pun, but I think that really is the heart of the matter.  It is easy for me to think about how I want to shape and guide my children, but I think I get into trouble when I focus on the end product rather than the starting place.

Reflecting on this idea was deeply convicting for me.  I felt the weight of many of Jesus’ words as I realized some of the mistakes of which I am continually guilty.

Clean cups and whitewashed tombs.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for focusing on the outward appearance while neglecting to tend to the inward reality.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.  So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:25-28).

To be perfectly honest, I think sometimes my mentality is that I’ll clean the outside of the cup first, or present a respectable whitewashed tomb, and then everyone can see something pretty while I work on cleaning the inside.  But even if I manage to fool the outside world, I certainly can’t fool God, and really I can’t even fool my children, who spend pretty much every waking hour in my presence.  They know the real me.  They see my weaknesses and my flaws.  They know that what the world might see isn’t the whole picture.

I don’t want my children to think of me as a hypocrite.  I try to be vulnerable with them, to ask them for forgiveness, to share with them when I struggling.

The other day I was leading them in a time of communion, and I was trying to model for them the thought process I go through as I approach the elements.

“What sin have I committed?” I mused out loud, hoping to help them focus their thoughts inward and consider the state of their own hearts.

“You yell,” Ian said frankly.  (I’ve been asking for forgiveness for yelling a lot lately.)

“Um… yes.  So that’s what I’m thinking about right now.  But you’re supposed to be thinking about your own sin.”

Which leads me to the second teaching of Jesus that the end of this chapter made me consider.

The log in my own eye.

Ian may have been overlooking his own sin to point out mine, but he learned that from a master.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).

As I try to help guide my children and correct them, I often am pointing out specks that pale in comparison to the log in my own eye.  Now, obviously this passage isn’t addressing parents, and if we waited until we had dealt with all our own imperfections before correcting our children we would turn out some pretty scary offspring.  However, I have sometimes often caught myself speaking to one of them in a tone that I just corrected when I heard them use it toward a sibling, or saying things in a less than encouraging way when I am frequently reminding them to “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

So as I consider the importance of nurturing my children’s hearts and shepherding their spirits to long for God, I want to keep in mind that it all starts in my heart.  I need to be spending time daily in the Word of God.  It gets said over and over, but in the craziness of life with four young children I let it slip far too often.  I have taken to leaving my Bible open so I can catch a snippet in any spare moment.  I often only get to read a few verses a day, but I try to make sure I at least take in a little of the Word daily.  I post verses above my kitchen window and reflect on the same one for weeks at a time.  I am trying to tend my own heart so that what overflows to my children is the kind of spirit-filled life I desire for them.  Only then will I be able to truly nurture the hearts and nourish their spirits in such a way that they will hunger for the true source of life.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page. 

 

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