Fountain Dancing Children

A friend sent me this article today from crosswalk.com...."I don't want to raise a GOOD child"......and it struck a chord deep within my soul.

For so long, my husband and I have really felt that the qualities that we see in our children are amazingly special characteristics that God has placed within them to: 1) refine us as parents  2) refine us as children of God and MOST IMPORTANTLY 3) be nurtured to walk LIFE LONG as followers of Christ.

We named our son fully knowing that his name means "charismatic adventurer".  (Yes, maybe a shot in the foot from the get go :o)  He has fully filled his name from the moment he emerged from the womb....yes, he cried before he even fully emerged.  (The OB said he'd never seen that in all his years.) 

He makes his wishes known, is aggravatingly stubborn at times, and will push the envelope as far as it may go.  I think God definitely heard my prayers when I said I didn't want a boring kid. (Or kids for that matter - little Miss Banana keeps us on our toes as well.)


But as my beloved and I tried to wrap our heads around our first child, that was known on a first name basis at the Pediatric ER, God opened our hearts and our eyes to see that so many of the things that others thought were not positive attributes in our sweet boy were truly GIFTS.  GIFTS.

As I pray with him and over him, I am so thankful for the gifts of personality that were given to him by my Heavenly Father...and I'm thankful for the blessing that he stands up for what he believes, he doesn't back down, he speaks of his love for Christ to others and that he has eyes to see others hurting (I think these are amazing gifts in an almost 7 year old!). 

So, this devotional, available here, means so much to me.  And it will give me hope on days when I struggle to see the gifts and only see the frustration....because that is what Hudson and Anna are to me - gifts.

And I'm a FOUNTAIN DANCING CHILD myself....Praise the LORD!

===============================================
"I Don't Want to Raise a Good Child"  -Lysa TerKeurst

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 (NIV 1984)

My daughter, Hope, is a senior this year. And she decided her senior year should be adventurous and a little out of the "normal" box. A lot out of the box actually.

She withdrew from traditional school. Applied with the state to homeschool. Enrolled in online college courses that would allow her to get both high school and college credit simultaneously. And planned to spend the month of January serving in Nicaragua doing missions.

This didn't surprise me really. Hope has always liked charting her own course. This thrills me now. But it didn't thrill me so much in the early years of raising this strong-spirited child.

When she was really little I was scared to death I was the world's worst mom, because Hope was never one to be contained. And I honestly thought all her extra tenacity was a sign of my poor mothering.

One day I took her to the mall to meet several of my friends with toddlers to grab lunch. All of their kids sat quietly eating cheerios in their strollers. They shined their halos and quoted Bible verses and used tissues to wipe their notes.

Not Hope.

She was infuriated by my insistence she stay in her stroller. So, when I turned away for a split second to place our lunch order, she wiggled free. She stripped off all her clothes. She ran across the food court. And jumped in the fountain in the center of the mall.

Really, nothing makes the mother of a toddler feel more incapable than seeing her naked child splashing in the mall fountain. Except maybe that toddler refusing to get out and said mother having to also get into the fountain.

I cried all the way home.

Not because of what she'd done that day. But rather because of how she was everyday. So determined. So independent. So insistent.

I would beg God to show me how to raise a good child. One that stayed in her stroller. One that other people would comment about how wonderfully behaved she was. One that made me look good.

But God seemed so slow to answer those prayers. So, over the years, I changed my prayer. "God help me to raise Hope to be who You want her to be." Emphasis on, "God HELP ME!"

I think I changed my prayers for her because God started to change my heart. I sensed He had a different plan in mind for my mothering of Hope.

Maybe God's goal wasn't for me to raise a good rule-following child. God's goal was for me to raise a God-following adult. An adult just determined and independent and insistent enough to fulfill a purpose He had in mind all along.

Today's key verse reminds us we are training children so that when they are old they will not turn away from Biblical principles, but rather implement them in their life-long pursuit of God. Remember, the things that might aggravate you about your child today, might be the very things when matured that make them great for God's kingdom tomorrow.

I've certainly seen this in raising Hope.

I don't know what mama needs to hear this today. But let me encourage you from the bottom of my heart with three simple mothering perspectives you must hang on to:
1. Don't take too much credit for their good.
2. Don't take too much credit for their bad.
3. Don't try to raise a good child. Raise a God-following adult.
And all the mamas of fountain dancing children said, "Amen!"

Dear Lord, I know You desire for me to raise a God-following adult. Please give me Your wisdom as I seek to become the parent You called to this high honor. Redirect my perspectives and equip me for this task today. In Jesus' Name. Amen.