#godnumberone

What I pray my future children know: “You’re #3”

 Before you start FedEx expressing me parenting books entitled “Showing Godly Love to Your Children”, pamphlets on “Be a Stellar n’ Selfless Parent”, and blogs entitled “10 Steps to Being a Parent who Succeeds,” I ask you to hear me out before heeding action on bombarding my snail mail and clogging up my e-mail (as much as I do love mail…but preferably not hate mail ;)). 

  I am an observer by nature.  I notice details…and I mean I take in everything.  I call myself half-jokingly, half-seriously the “psychoanalyzer”.  With this comes beauty such as I quickly latch on to the intricacies of life—the hue of a specific flower in an eclectic bouquet, the flush of the face of a school girl whose eyes just befell her crush, or an individual swirl in a fluffy Spring cloud.  However, it also has its nuisances as my mind never, and I mean never, shuts down. 

  In stride with my psychoanalysis of all aspects of life, I have certainly analyzed and observed marriage and parenting since I was a wee age.  In my teen years I sat in on a marriage class for Christian women due to sheer intrigue and desiring to chew on pieces of wisdom and gain understanding way before my time.  I have listened to countless sermons on parenting and marriage out of mere curiosity. And I continue to gather internal information and observation as an adult and a teacher of hundreds of children daily, and many times feel like a parent in the classroom (as I have been accidentally and intentionally called “Mom” before by students).  I see the results of those who parent like a champ, those who parent horribly, and those who are parents that painstakingly simply just can’t let go.

  With all my observations, I have realized how uniquely blessed I am, and thankful, that my parents had their priorities straight in my childhood and continuing through present day as now being parents of three adult girls:

  #1 – God

#2 – Husband or Wife

#3 – Child(ren) (and now add my parents’ grandchildren into this category ;))

#4 – Self

  If you are a parent and reading this, you may be shocked to learn that from my perspective and understanding, most children who are actively pursuing a life intertwined with God’s heart, do not want to be #1 nor #2.  A God-loving, Christian child wants nothing more than to see their parents love and adore God first, and each other second. 

  On the day you say, “I do”, you become one with that partner.  You have agreed to a covenant, not a contract but a covenant, to love and adore that person until death do you part.  Once married, your spouse becomes your #1 ministry.  The partnership and sanctification of marriage is God’s most beautiful blessing to us, aside from salvation.  And while rearing your children, if you let your marriage slip to #3, #4, or maybe even #10, your most important ministry on earth, your spouse, slips by the waist-side, raining harm to God’s greatest earthly blessing to us, as well as the nasty repercussions it brings to the entire family and home.  God calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church, for by loving his wife he is, in fact, loving his own body (Ephesians 5:26-29).  And women are called to respect their husband, as the head and leader of the household, as we love and respect God as our head, and serve him as Christ serves us humbly.

  One of the greatest gifts you can bestow upon your child, before s/he leaves your home to be joined with another (Matthew 19:5), is to demonstrate a loving and selfless marriage.  By learning this lesson through observation, your child will have a gift that will carry through his or her own marriage for a lifetime.  For the work of a parent is to not firmly grasp to the children and never let them flap their wings to soar, but instead train the child in the way he or she should go to someday live a life an adult life of 18+ glorifying Him (Proverbs 22:6).  Once they enter adulthood and begin to fly solo, your greatest blessing you can give them is to pray for them to be the best person, husband/wife, father/mother, they can be to their own family someday, and pray that the beautiful picture you, your spouse, and God as a tri-team stroked onto their canvas view of marriage will help them to look to God too, to create His own beautiful masterpiece for your child’s family.    

  In Spanish class I introduced a fictitious story to the chitlins about this young girl who was given a genie who could make three wishes, and one wish was her parents would stop fighting and get along.  I always pose the question in Spanish with this story of what their opinion is: should the parents get a divorce or stay together?  I have carried through this story at least four times now with 100+ different high school students, many of which heartbreakingly spend half their week at Mom’s house and half at Dad’s house.  Parents would be amazed to hear in a secular school of modern day America, a society who encourages divorce if your spouse does not make you “happy”, that maybe 5-10 out of those 100+ students said the parents should get a divorce, and the other 90+ said they should make it work and stay together.  WOW! 

  As an asterisks side-note, I do know and recognize there are Biblical validated reasons for getting divorce (abuse and unfaithfulness by adultery); I am not referring to marriages of these characteristics by any means.