PROMISE #25 ~ DISCIPLINE
Ever feel like a fraud?
Like the perfect-mama act is a cover for the true story. The story that plays itself out in the mess of dishes, school books strewn wide, toys scattered, tempers boiling in the pressure cooker of a kitchen.
Maybe not even the perfect-mama story, but the I’m-doing-great-getting-along-just-fine-no-issues-here story. The kind comments of others, complimenting a well-behaved child, and you wonder how in the world that kid got to be that way? There is no way I could have had that effect on a young one with the irritation that brews under my skin too often.
As I write, I just bit the head off of an unsuspecting little one, who grabbed at mommy just one too many times. A frustrating feeling of failure, or impending failure at every turn.
Tears wiped away. Kisses planted.
I have a friend who said that the happiness of your kids is evidence of how you raise them. Well, what about when they are less than happy? Am I stamped with the bad-mommy logo if there is less than happiness?
A mother is only as happy as her saddest child.
Is this truth? Is is about happiness anyway?
We long for the happy. Shouldn’t the joy matter more?
I certainly don’t feel particularly happy while barking at a child, scrubbing a pot, turning another filthy sock right side out, digging through a textbook with a resistant fun-time seeker. Not so happy. Not at times like these.
The joy? Perhaps is something quite different. Something eluding definition. Something attainable in all places, all situations between happiness… and misery. Joy, from another place entirely.
The joy in the stretching, in the taming of the tongue, in the service to Him… while serving the ungrateful, the unaware. Maybe it’s the joy that glows from their eyes, despite a mama who rebukes… the joy evident, most probably because of the discipline from this mom.
The discipline itself, the most loving act.
Maybe it’s in the discipline we give… the discipline we get… maybe that’s where the greatest joy lives.
The scalding discipline might just be what leads us to the joy… the love… the peace.
Happiness is not necessary at every turn. Joy, however… joy can exist… breathe easy… just because we are loved.
Discipline. Sometimes the most loving act of all.
PROMISE #25 ~ God disciplines those He loves.
Job 5:17
“Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
Leave a Reply