Multitude Monday: 1000 Gifts ~ I recently read...

...an amazing blog post on what it means to be a good parent.

And I immediately thought of how my perfect heavenly Father gifts me with opportunities to parent well - and how I often don't even see them until they've already happened. In those moments, those accidental-on-my-part-parenting-more-totally-a-grace-from-God-blessing, my kids have a chance to learn something, live something, I would have never thought of, imagined or dreamed up on my own - because I'd have been too afraid to watch them risk hurt or failure.

Do you ever wonder about the "risks" God entrusts to us?

Those things that would be so much simpler if He just did them?

Why He does, why He allows,

experiences like this... what you see in these photos...? 

Just over a week ago,

He gave our children an incredible, life opening - life-changing, really - opportunity I'd probably have been too afraid to entrust to them, if it had been left

just up to me...

A quote from that blog post has hung with me ever since I read it: 

"...he says it softly.'This is good.'

I raise an eyebrow. 'What’s good?'

'This. All of it. The discipline. The competition. But especially this.'

'Learning to fail?'

'Yes,' he says. Learning how to keep going. How to cope. How to live...' "

As a parent, I hurt when my kids hurt.

It is often easy to consider myself a failure when they hurt, or when my kids fail...

It is scarier to let them risk failure

than to risk it myself

because I've got this idea that

I am,

somehow,

supposed to protect them from all bad.

But I'm not I AM...

and He doesn't.

As Rebekah agonized over the menu... grocery list and budget... staying up way too late on a school night to make chili so it would have time to freeze before they left... and totally stressed saying over and over again how

she never wanted to do something like this again...

As I worried and wondered:

 What happens if the dust aggravates asthma,

if my often allergic and very reactive to so very many things one

who carries an epi-pen,

gets stung or bitten by something -

and she does react...

...so far from what medical care we do have here

and so far from me?

As he collected money, distributed money, kept accounts and lists, translated skits and words to be presented through yet another translator to excited village children,

all during a week already totally full with day to day schoolwork and projects...

As I worried and wondered:

What if it happens again - he pushes too hard,

gets too tired,

Epstein-Barr resurfaces,

malaria, always opportunistic, attacks an already tired body,

and then he's the one who runs around barefoot in the dark

way more often than I'd prefer... ?

What happens if their skits, songs, crafts and plans don't go well?

Or they run into the antagonistic,

more militant variety of the predominant religion of this land?

And there is always the reality of driving on these roads, in this place...

I heard some commenting that too much of the burden was put on their shoulders,

more adults should have been involved in the planning,

something bad was bound to happen because they were too young to consider

all of the possibilities and implications of their choices and decisions.

I wondered if those complaints were valid.

Nothing too bad happened,

at least nothing of which I'm aware.

What did happen?

God, in His grace, let this present day "Zaccheus" hear Words of Life

shared by teens, my teens,

as teens spent the weekend in his village.

Amazing growth,

people encouraged,

eyes opened

lots of giggles, snuggles, sticky lollipop hands and faces,
 

singing, smiling, sharing,

clapping

playing,

working,

praising,

worshipping,

serving,

stepping outside the comfortable known,

those domains of confidence that require little stretching and growing,

investing and learning,

impacting, by God's grace, eternity.

People are thirsty,

thirsty for relationship with God -

to meet Him,

to learn to trust Him,

to know Him ever more profoundly once they've met Him...

And it isn't just women seeking the well by an African village

somewhere out in the Sahel region of the continent...

although it certainly includes them.

Isn't it amazing how many women encountered God at a well?

Isn't it amazing that it still happens like that today?

Encounters with God result in change...

 including those teens (see them in the background?) who went to serve,

who encountered the One they served ~

the ones they served ~

and each other as they ministered together and to each other ~

so that it surpassed what they expected.

They came back changed.

Somewhere in the midst of all that,

this parent also had her own encounter with the Lord,

as He helped me, for at least that one brief moment,

be... 

a parent who seeks to imitate

her perfect Heavenly Father

the good parent

"...who knows the value of pain, because... [I've] chosen to receive its good gifts in... [my] own life..... I wonder what the world would look like if every parent valued character over winning. Virtue over popularity. Honor over honors. If we let the applause of men fall on deaf ears and kept our eyes on the real prize." (Jeanne Damoff)

I hope I've changed, too.

 

this week's gratitude list:

(#s 1703 - 1726)

opportunity for change

actually changing

taking risks

learning from mistakes and failures

loving through failures

teens on outreach trips

coffee (with pumpkin spice syrup and REAL creme) and prayer with a friend on Thursday morning

new friends visiting for dinner

3 year old birthday parties

December's arrival

tissues for runny noses

Vicks Vapor rub and hot, steamy showers

almost teen mastering the art of pita bread - and teaching me how to best roll those pitas out

sleeping late

rising early to make birthday treats for my brand new 11 year old

Christmas carols at church

hearing the flute

foxtrots, jitterbugs, waltzes and cha chas

big band music

2nd place in a dessert contest

peanut butter ice cream for breakfast

cold forcing me to slow down

one more week of classes and then it is final exams!

dreaming of Christmas - thinking about Jesus, time off from school, time with my kids, time with favorite people, a trip to Parc W, always returning to thoughts of that babe in the manger