There are days when I just know, in the very marrow of my bones, that I am not meant to be a mother. When the little angels are both screaming, the younger for whatever inhumanity she could possibly be experiencing as a fed, dry, clean, warm, middle-class child lying on a sofa, and the elder because I won't let him hit his head against a piece of wood or throw a metal car at the window, at that moment I think 'this is why I'm a Christian'.
No, actually, it's more complicated than that, but I'll have to make it concise since I'm typing with one hand.
Really what I think is 'I wish you would just be quiet. I wish you would understand me, I wish you could see that what I'm telling you is logical, is correct, is the better choice for you!' I want Samuel to stop screaming at me because I said not to throw his plate on his foot, and suddenly become a functional human being capable of associating the pain in his foot with the act of throwing the plate. I want Clara to tell. me. what. is. wrong. I can't guess. I can't. It's been six hours and I've tried everything and if you keep crying like that I'm going to have to put you in your basinette and go to the bathroom and cry. These are the things I want from my children when we're in the thick of it, and these are the things I will never get from them until a time when I no longer need those things. By the time Clara can tell me why she's cried for six hours we'll be past the crying in the evening stage. By the time Samuel can understand the connection between action and reaction, he (let's hope) will have moved on from the entertainment afforded by smacking your head against the wall.
You're expecting me to tell you that we are all like this to God, aren't you? That we are whining, petulant babies, smacking our heads against the wall, crying to God. But I'm not going to tell you that. Instead, I'm going to tell you something very different. Yes, we are as bad in our behaviour as my children are. We are as illogical, as emotional, as volatile as they are. And God is our parent, I believe, but that's where the similarities end, because God, high as he is, speaks to us not as we deserve, but as he would wish us to be.
He walked with Abraham in the fields, as a friend. Not because imperfect, disobedient, distrustful Abraham deserved God's friendship, but because, I think, God saw in him the man he could be, and wanted to be with that man. God saw worth in that relationship. He wrestled with Jacob, not because he needed to wrestle with him to prove a point, or to physically win a match, but because he saw, I think, a need in Jacob, a strength. Jacob needed to wrestle, and God respected his child's need. Did he need to wrestle all night? No, he could have won with a fingertip, with a breath, with nothing at all, but he didn't. He respected Jacob enough to reduce himself, without reducing Jacob.
God the parent has a unique ability to meet his children where they are, take their concerns, needs and gifts seriously, to take them seriously as people, and to never make them feel small and insignificant. He doesn't need us to fulfill his wants. He looks upon us, imperfect us, with eyes that see the imperfections, and then past them, through the layers of sin, to the core of who we are. He sees past the six hours of screaming and the car-throwing. And although he reduces himself greatly, down to words on a page, down to the size of a human child, down to a wrestler who can't easily win, to a dying man on a cross, to a pillar of fire, to a still, small voice...he never makes us feel insignificant. God does not trade in the currency of humiliation and smallness. He sees the possibility of friendship, of success, of happiness. He can give housekeeping advice, meet someone's child, wash his friend's feet, without ever making it seem as though he's lowered himself to the task.
Back to my children, though, back to my imperfect parenting. When I think 'this is why I'm a Christian', I think it because our world does trade in the currency of breaking down self-confidence and in humiliation. Samuel is not a 'bad' child, he's two years old. God can teach me how to get down to his level, without making Sam feel as though I'm patronizing him, and talk to him. He can help me understand my one month old by putting myself in her place. He has experience walking in our shoes, and encourages us to experience each other's burdens as well.
This is how we become better parents. This is what I want to remember, when Samuel passes into each stage and Clara stops smacking me and the days get simultaneously easier and harder - that my ultimate parent has related to me, without making me feel small, and that he's seen worthwhile things in me, through each stage, even the really awful dye-my-hair-purple stage, and turn and give the same respect and love to my own children.
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