Instead of being frustrated because my children are “keeping me” from having that perfect day in my head, I’ve got to realize that being present with their current sibling fight, or their current question about why all the angels in the Bible are men- is actually what is needed!
Obviously plans are good, Doing the work to create habits- great. But what if we could work on, even within our well-meaning agendas, creating margin for GOSPEL MOMENTS? Slowing down enough to capture the invitation to share Jesus with our children?
You know those moments when your child screams, “I don’t want to keep forgiving her!” when you’re just trying to pack up the car? When you’re in a hurried mindset, you may just say, “well, you have to!”
But when you’ve created margin for that, you can slow down long enough to say: “You’re right- it seems silly to keep forgiving someone over and over. That’s why we need the Holy Spirit. He’s the One who empowers us to forgive, without keeping record of that person’s wrongs. Remember- He does it for us all the time! And He doesn’t make us forgive in our own strength- He gives us His strength! Do you want to ask Jesus for His strength together?”
As we step into homeschool routines and daily rhythms, I’m asking the Lord to help me slow down for the conflicts that are almost always Gospel invitations. To tend to the actual day before me- and not the day in my head.
Yes, make plans! But when Jesus was seeminly interrupted by the woman with the issue of blood, of the man called “legion”, it turns out that those WERE the God-ordained appointments. Scripture didn’t skirt around those interruptions. Those interruptions are the Scripture! Those interruptions provided a stage for the power of Jesus to move!
What if our children’s interruptions are actually written in our individual book, the book that was written telling all the days our our lives before they took shape, when as yet there was none of them? (Psalm 139:16) Could it be that these moments we think are hindering us were actually recorded thousands of years ago? I’ve come to the realization that this must be so.
“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life–the life God is sending day by day.”
– C.S. Lewis
Ever-following The Way,
Jada
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