Chapter 7: The Freedom To Be Different

Can you tell it’s crunch time? I need to finish this book pronto so Craig can have his turn reading it. Three quotes for tonight:

Page 140, “Grace must be quantifiable. To talk about grace, sing about grace, and have our children memorize verses about grace—but not give them specific gifts of grace—is to undermine God’s work of grace in their hearts.”

Page 141, “We take things that are huge to children and trivialize them, or we take small issues and magnify them out of proportion.”

Page 142, “When we elevate an arbitrary Christian behavior above the best interests of a child’s heart, we’ve clearly lost our way. There’s no other explanation for it.”

Wow, ouch, wow, ouch, wow. Good words.

Chapter 6: A Delivery System For Grace

Short chapter this time. I have one quote and one great visual. First the quote:

“There’s nothing graceful about a life of license. If anything, a licensed life is the shortcut people take if they really want to speed up their personal destruction.”

Now the visual (and really, the quality of my picture isn’t what I’m talking about here, rather the diagram itself):

In case you can’t see it clearly, he’s woven together the concepts of instilling in our kids a secure love, a significant purpose, and a strong hope with the tenants of parenting our kids with four freedoms: to be different, to be vulnerable, to be candid, and to make mistakes.

Chapter 5: A Strong Hope

Tim Kimmel titled chapter five, A Strong Hope, and he does a great job here of explaining why it’s important, how we can build it, and how we so easily destroy it in our children. On page 95 he says, “Anything—minus hope—equals nothing. Hope is the human equivalent of oxygen when it comes to a person’s ability to live effectively.”

He tells us, “Grace is the key because grace is a by-product of hope, and hope is a by-product of grace. Let’s remind ourselves of what grace is. In simple terms, grace is receiving something we don’t deserve but desperately need,” and “Unfortunately, parental negligence-whether intentional or unwitting-can set a child up to struggle with hopelessness and feelings of inadequacy for a lifetime.”

Kimmel devotes a lot of time cautioning the over-protective parent. He says that parents who run their children’s lives and make most of their decisions discourage them from individual thinking which can damage their ability to learn to lean on God. He perfectly describes many of the parents Craig has encountered during his two years at a Christian school as well as many of the homeschooling parents I’ve “run into” on blogs and such. On page 113 he says, “raising safe Christian kids is a spiritual disaster in the making. Your effort will produce shallow faith and wimpy believers. Kids raised in an environment that stresses safety are on track to be evangelical pushovers. They will tend to end up either overly critical of the world system to the point where they won’t want anything to do with the people in the world system-an idea that comes directly from Satan’s playbook. Or, they will become naïve about the world system, which ultimately makes them putty in Satan’s hands. He chews up these kinds of people like they are spiritual McNuggets and swallows them whole. When they’re finally confronted with the full thrust of the world system as young adults, few know how to turn it into an opportunity for spiritual impact.”

And I thought his swimming analogy on page 120 was very good: “To many Christian parents, the idea of developing their children’s faith is like teaching them to swim on the living room rug. They don’t want them to learn how to swim in water because they could drown. So these children don’t really learn how to live out a strong, adventurous faith; they just know how to go through the motions.”

My defensiveness begins to kick in a bit while reading this chapter in that it almost sounds as though Kimmel is saying anyone who sends their kids to Christian schools or who homeschools is guilty of this over-parenting phenomenon. Again, I don’t really think that’s what he’s saying, but it is rather easy to read that into his text. As with anything (everything!), this is a parent’s decision based on what they believe is the right decision for their family given their circumstances and their leading from the Lord. I’ve known good and bad examples to spring forth from all possible schooling decisions: home, Christian, public, non-Christian private. It is so much less about the educational environment and so much more about the families themselves, the parents themselves. And I think really Kimmel says that too.

I loved what he said on page 112 about grooming our children according to their natural bents. It is impossible to print out a list of how to raise a child and have it work for every child. It isn’t hard to see how individuals are so different from one another. Aren’t children individuals too? Even with the things about children that are “different” he says, “We can’t make these liabilities disappear, but we are to raise them in such a way that we account for them and give them tools to help process them properly.”

Chapter 4: A Significant Purpose

It’s been a while, I know. I’m trying to finish this book, so I expect I’ll be posting here more as I get through it over the next couple of weeks…

The fourth chapter in Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel reminds us of, “a deep longing in the heart of every child to ‘make a difference.’ They were hard-wired by God to want to do more than take up space and suck up air. They weren’t born to be common denominators or mere faces in the crowd” (page 69).

He went on to list all kinds of different families who blunt potential in children: tyrannical, preoccupied, indifferent, lazy. On page 70, he says, “Our children deserve better. God has left us as stewards of our children’s gifts and skills.” I was taken by this idea of being a steward of the girls’ gifts, skills, minds, emotions, etc. It isn’t enough to simply provide the information they need, to present it. I need to be engaging with them in all these areas. I need to help steer them here.

This chapter so deeply emphasizes helping our children develop a sense of significant purpose and drive in life I think it almost sounds like a Lynne Spears type of endorsement. On page 75 he says, “In the bigger scheme of life, it is more important that we help our children reach their potential than it is to see our own dreams come true. Many parents aren’t willing to make that sacrifice, but those who are often find that they gain much more in the end.” I think Lynne Spears would agree. In her own words her goal was to “help her children make their dreams come true.” I think there is definitely a danger in teaching kids that the only thing that matters is their happiness and their dreams. To be sure, I don’t believe Kimmel is condoning this Spears-type of parenting, as is evidenced later in the chapter, but this one portion did seem to lean in that direction.

Back to the idea of helping to steward the potential of our children’s gifts, Kimmel reminds us on page 77 that, “Children embrace what is modeled far more than what they are told. Our good advice carries clout only when it is consistent with our example.” This, combined with his words on 92, “For good or for ill, we play the biggest role in determining what kind of a difference they will ultimately make,” really punched me right in the stomach. I’m all about good intentions with my kids. I question my own follow-through. There is so much I want them to embrace yet I don’t know if I’m fully embracing it myself. I’m constantly telling my kids their actions speak louder than their words. Kimmel is now telling this to me. I need to hear it. I need to hear it every day.

He talked about the importance of regularly affirming our kids by reminding us of the cause and effect between encouragement and confidence (page 83). He said, “Affirmation catches your children doing things right. It notices when they do things you know don’t come easy to them.” Why is it so much harder to remember to point out the good? I do this sometimes, but I don’t do it nearly as often as I point out the flaws. I need to implement the 3-for-1 principle where for every critique there are three compliments. Maybe I would be more careful about how often I critique…

Then, on page 89, Kimmel says, “It’s hard to build a significant purpose into people we aren’t paying careful attention to. It’s our attention to the finer details that tells them how much they truly matter to us. Our gracious God is a God of details. He knows how many hairs are on our heads. He’s interested in us because we are fascinating to Him. Children who get the same treatment from their parents – the same treatment that their parents get from God – grow up feeling significant. A deep sense of significance makes it a lot easier for them to find their purpose and to live it out.”

Simply being present in the home with my kids does not mean I’m paying careful attention. The challenge I have is to not check out on my own family while I’m sitting right here in the same room. I want my kids to grow up knowing I was present, available, aware. I want to know the details, not because I snooped around long enough to find them, but because they were offered to me and I accepted.

Needed for Today

Proverbs 8:14
I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength.

Amen

Psalm 28

“To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift my hands toward your most holy sanctuary…The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.” Psalm 28: 1-2, 7

True, the bulk of my Bible reading has been in the context of reading to the girls lately. I’ve really been trying to be more intentional about making even that time mean something to me. By that I simply mean I’m trying not to read it simply for the sake of checking it off, but for true devotional reading. There have been some good thoughts from that time, but the problem with that is there isn’t time for me to write about it or reflect. I have to take what I can get these days.

Today needed something more. Here was my something more. Still plodding away here, wishing this discipline, as well as the other disciplines I struggle with would get easier already. But as they aren’t, I’m resolving myself to a long journey ahead of constant struggle. Maybe one day I will reach the top of this hill and enjoy the process of leisurely walking back down. Until then, I grab my water bottle and I hike.

Oh Yes, That Counts Too

I’m so busy beating myself up because I’ve not had what you would classify as an official “Quiet Time” by those who are members of the official Quiet Time Police, that I forget that I am reading the Word more often than I’m not. Usually it is in the context of reading it to the girls and not really devotional reading, but input is input, right? Tell me I’m right.

Yesterday I did get up and have an official quiet time. Somebody put a sticker on my chart. I started in Exodus which I really really really want to love and understand. Right now, though, it seems I’m just reading it so I can check it off on the Bible reading plan (and yes, if you keep score, you will notice Exodus comes in like February of most Bible reading plans and really it is August, so I’ve obviously not been following the plan very closely). So take the sticker back off my chart.

Anyway, I’m still here to admit that this is a struggle for me. It just might always be. But I will keep trying. It just might come during odd hours of the day when I’m surrounded by four young folks and trying to keep their attention while reading through the book of John. Bless that time, Lord. For them and for me.

Chapter 3: A Secure Love

From Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel:

This chapter opens with the quote that, “All children are born with a need to love, and be loved, a need to live lives that have meaning, and a need to believe that tomorrow is worth getting up for.” I read this and immediately think, “Oh yeah? Well so do I!” And I don’t mean that in a snarky way, but it was a good realization to me that children aren’t just these little pint-sized humans who have underdeveloped brains. They are truly people, made in the image of God, and with God-given needs. On page 46, Kimmel writes, “This [secure love] is a steady and sure love that is written on the hard drive of children’s souls. It’s a complete love that they default to when their hearts are under attack. It’s the kind of love that children can confidently carry with them into the future.” This is what every child, lo, every person, needs. A steady and sure love written on the hard drives of our souls.

Easier said than done, though, right? Kimmel explains that though most parents do indeed love their children, most times the love they give is incomplete. That many times children feel they have to compete for it, or earn it. Kimmel defines love on page 52 as, “the commitment of my will to your needs and best interests, regardless of the cost.” As a flawed person myself, I’m not sure I’m always able to adequately determine what the best interests of my kids are. I’m almost always certain to be able to determine what I think my own best interests are. Okay, I may be selling myself short here. I do keep what I hope are their best interests in mind much of the time, it’s just that it is so easy for me to let myself get in the way of that too.

On page 54 he says, “…saying that we love our children and doing certain things that communicate love isn’t enough. We’ve got to love them in the way that God loves us—when they’re unappreciative, when they don’t deserve it, when it’s inconvenient, when it is costly to us, even when it’s painful…children feel secure when they know they are accepted as they are.” Wow. How can I even expand on that? I’ve been really mindful all week of my own responses to my kids’ sinful choices, due, in part, to reading this book this week. I’m here to tell you that almost without fail, whenever I resolve to do better in this area with them, they test me all the more on it. We had one particular day in which nobody could do anything right for one particular girl. She was easily annoyed, and purposefully annoying. When I tried to reason with her, she developed a surprised attitude like she couldn’t even believe there was anything she’d done to deserve a removal from the room and a conversation about it. I get so easily offended by these responses, and believe me, on this particular day, this scenario was of the wash, rinse, repeat variety.

James 1 tells us to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” I sort of wonder if he’s teaching a parenting class here because this is what it feels like over and over and over. The thing I forget, though, is as the next verse of that passage says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.”

Here I am. I’m asking. Wisdom, please, a whole heaping house full.

On page 59, Kimmel finishes telling us a heart-breaking story of a mom and boy on vacation. There’s a breakfast buffet and he’s so excited to partake, but she steals his joy by telling him he can’t have it (even though she’s getting it). When the dad joins the family a few minutes later and sees his boy quietly crying, he questions her on it and the boy is allowed to go through the line. His joy returns. But when he came back with his plate loaded with all kinds of starchy, sugary goodness, the mom berates him again for his poor choices, wastefulness, bad nutrition, etc. In my retelling of it, I’m not doing a very good job of conveying the heart issues involved here, but the boy was seriously deflated. After telling the story, Kimmel says, “I’ve heard it all over the years. I’m very aware of how strict, no-nonsense parents morally justify everything they do. My questions are these: Was it worth it? Is that the way God treats us? Does God tease us with good things, insult us for being excited about them, and then scold us for trying to enjoy them?”

I made it until the first question there. Was it worth it? I cried. I’ve asked myself the same question before after a situation with one of the kids. Honestly, sometimes, yes, it was because they needed to be called on something. Other times, no, it really wasn’t. I was disciplining them for a failing to live up to a preference of mine rather than for a biblical standard. That is never worth it.

On page 65, Kimmel says, “If they’re forming a line for parents who have fallen short, and you feel that you should be in it, you’ll have to get in line behind me. We’ve all fallen short. We may not have pulled a scene like the mother at the buffet, but we’ve stolen our children’s joy unnecessarily more times than we’d like to count. We’ve turned non-issues into crises. We’ve sculpted molehills into mountains. We’ve reached inside our children’s hearts and pinched them simply because we could.” He goes on to say that what we as parents really need is to hear Him say, “It’s all right. I forgive you. I’ll help you recover from the mistakes you’ve made with your kids.”

I do want to hear that. I want to beg God for wisdom. I want to experience His forgiveness. I want to share what this feels like to my kids.

Chapter 2: The Truth Behind Grace

From Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel:

On page 29, Tim Kimmel writes, “…if the bottom line of parenting is grace, then that should affect how you develop goals for your children, how you handle discipline, how you process their fears, how you deal with their quirks and idiosyncrasies, and how you respond to their fads. Grace keeps you from clamping down on their spirits when they move through awkward transitions and walk through the valley of the shadow of adolescence. The reason grace makes the most sense as a bottom line for parenting is because of grace’s eternal appeal to the human heart.”

I really appreciated this thought about grace affecting all of these areas – how to develop goals for children and deal with their quirks as well as the obvious handling of discipline issues and fears. I know children need to be children, yet it is so easy for me to apply my own quirks and frustrations as the standard to which their childish behavior must meet. When Kimmel says on page 30, “It’s hard bringing out the best in children when they seem committed to bringing out the worst in us,” I felt like he was finally “hearing” me. It is hard to be grace-based with someone who will not be reasoned with and someone who is towing their own black-and-white lined version of what has happened and what the outcome should be. I need to be less concerned about being right and more concerned about shaping their hearts in the midst of the discussion, though this is tricky, because as the parent, I am responsible to also guide them in what is right. And as children, they frequently do not know or are not able to see things from a proper perspective. So the line between grace and truth can be spotty sometimes. Oh, that this would be an easier thing to understand. It would help if neither of us were such committed sinners.

On page 30, Kimmel says, “…what is it about Jesus that inclines us to cast our lot with a simple carpenter from an obscure, ancient village? It’s because of His grace – grace He has shown us by first purchasing us from the depths of our lost condition. It’s His grace that loves us when we’re being foolish, or stubborn, or selfish, or mean-spirited.”

And there it is – I’m so busy trying to make my children into perfect people that I forget how foolish, stubborn, selfish and mean-spirited I myself can be.
Also on page 30, “Grace can also help you know what matters and what doesn’t. It helps you give kids a lot of freedom to simply be ‘kids’ and keeps you from living in a reactive mode as they go through certain stages. Without grace, you can turn high standards and strong moral convictions into knives that cut deeply into the inner recesses of your children’s hearts.”

Ouch. That may very well be my chosen style of parenting – that of the reactive mode.

Kimmel quotes Ephesians 6:4 on page 36 when he writes, “’Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.’ The Greek word translated ‘exasperate’ means literally to irritate beyond measure.” I distinctly remember having Ephesians 6:1 quoted to me once upon a time and I smartly retorted with Ephesians 6:4, as if I knew better. While I probably shouldn’t have done so then (I was probably 14), I should do so at myself now. This verse really does come to mind quite a bit, though, along with the one in Proverbs about a gentle response turning away anger. They are both true and advice I need to set before me on an hourly basis.

Using a lighthouse as an analogy, Kimmel says on page 42, “God places parents as a light on a hill for their family. It is our job to send out a clear signal that helps our children get their bearings and keep their wits. We’re there to warn them away from rocks and shallow shoals. We’re there to guide them safely back into the center of the channel when they’ve wandered off. We are a lighthouse, permanently established to show them the way home. Without us keeping that steady light shining, our children don’t stand much of a chance of making it through the turbulent years of childhood without serious consequences.”

A lighthouse. This is a good way to look at this because so much of the time I see myself as a tugboat, pulling my kids along behind me, sometimes in the path I think they should go and other times in just whatever path I happen to be on.

This could be the very reason I even started this second blog anyway. I recognize a serious need for deeper dependence on the Lord in my life. I recognize how I need to model this for my children. I’ve trained myself to be so dad-gummed independent over the years that I’ve forgotten how desperately dependent I really am. I want to learn that again. I want to feel that again. I want my children to see me recognize that again. I want to come to the Lord, with my kids, and beg Him for grace for us as a family as we navigate these murky waters. I need to be a lighthouse for them, yes, but I also need to be looking for the lighthouse for myself and for all of us.

Chapter 1: Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short

Psst: I realize this isn’t exactly quiet time material, but it has been helpful in informing some spiritual thinking for me of late, so I’m posting it here instead of there…

I’m taking a weekend class in October called “Gospel-Centered Parenting.” One of the books I’m to read is one I’ve had on the shelf for four years now and have never managed to find the time to read, Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel. In an unprecedented move, I’m starting the book now and thought I’d post my observations from it here as I go. Tonight I prove to the world that I can take even a book on grace and turn it into a list of rules I’ve not kept, thereby proving even more completely my inadequacies in this fragile game of parenting.

Kimmel begins the chapter by giving brief descriptions of most of the major theories and practices of parenting, most of which can be summed up in one of the two extremes of  “authoritarian and authoritative” (thank you, Oklahoma State University and the many hours spent listening to and reading about child development theory ala Jean Piaget et al). He doesn’t use those words, though, he uses the words boundaries, as in, parents who themselves were raised with too-tight boundaries and parents who themselves were raised with none. Regarding this latter group on page 5, he says, “they assume that their obedience to a stricter and tighter standard will somehow help them raise safer and better children. It won’t. Since how children turn out is far more contingent on what is going on inside them than outside them, unnecessarily tight boundaries undermine the desire of the Holy Spirit, who is working to build a sense of moral resolve in their hearts.”

He takes both groups of these extremes and says they can be further labeled as one of these two ways: judgmental or legalistic, as all parenting styles are the result of a parent’s theology. Further explaining the consequences of this type of parenting, he says on page 18, “Their children may leave these homes feeling loved, but they will also feel something else. Kids with judgmental parents tend to leave home with a feeling of spiritual elitism. Kids with legalistic parents leave home feeling guilty. They often want nothing to do with the method their parents used to raise them, and they usually live their lives in stark contrast to the values they were raised with.”

What I wonder is what happens with we leave home feeling both elitist and guilty? Can you say, “In need of a therapist?”

Then Kimmel moves on to what he considers to be effective parenting, or “grace-based” parenting. On page 19 he says, “Grace-based parents spend their times entrusting themselves to Christ. They live to know God more. Their children are the daily recipients of the grace these parents are enjoying from the Lord. If you watch them in action, they appear to be peaceful and very much in love with God. They are especially graceful when their children are hardest to love. Their advice to their children would be a mixture of: ‘You are a gift from god; go make a difference,’ and ‘You may struggle doing the right thing sometimes, but you’re forgiven.’”

I love the way this sounds. I want to be this kind of parent. I’ve already blown it as this kind of parent and that makes me wonder if there is even any hope for me in this area. Kimmel says on page 20, “Grace-based parents have a keen awareness of their feet of clay. They understand their own propensity toward sin. This makes the grace and forgiveness they received from Christ much more appreciated… I’m urging you to raise your children the way God raises His. The primary word that defines how God deals with His children is grace. Grace does not exclude obedience, respect, boundaries, or discipline, but it does determine the climate in which these important parts of parenting are carried out.”

Here’s where I screw all of this up – I do understand my own propensity toward sin. I expect grace for myself all the time because I know I’m not able to meet the standard without it. For some reason I’m unable to extend that same mental courtesy to anyone else. I expect everyone to do better at this than I do and when they don’t, I have very little to offer them by way of second-chances. I’m wondering if this is how I think of God’s actions toward me. Maybe I don’t trust His love for me because I can’t understand how He could give me the multiple chances my sinful life requires. And if I can’t accept it from God for myself, how in the world can I extend it to anyone else? To my own children?

On page 21 Kimmel says, “His grace is there for you when you fail, when you fall, and when you make huge mistakes. This kind of grace makes all the difference in the world when it’s coming from God, through you, to your children. Children brought up in homes where they are free to be different, vulnerable, candid, and to make mistakes learn firsthand what the genuine love of God looks like.”

Do I allow this in my own kids? Do I allow it in my husband? Do I allow it in myself?

Also on page 21, Kimmel says, “God is a God of variety, and He deals with us accordingly.” I had to really stop and think about this for a second because all of the standard lines on “growing kids God’s way” talks about consistency and order. The pause for me came in that for the first time I had to reconcile the mystery of consistency and variety in the very nature of God. Yes, it is possible for Him to be both. Maybe now I’m beginning to understand how his children can all be so infuriatingly and beautifully different from each other and both still be perfectly within his will.

Kimmel says there are three fundamental, driving inner needs of every child, the need for security, significance, and strength. He says these needs were, “the logical conclusion of being made in God’s image.” He also said, “[Satan] is working even as you are reading this book to meet your child’s three driving inner needs in counterfeit ways…Every time you see him making a move on your children, he’s offering them a knockoff solution to one or a combination of these three inner needs.”

These needs aren’t food, shelter, and a Classical education. Security. Significance. Strength. When I instruct my children, when I discipline them, when I nudge them in the way they should go, am I doing it in a way that meets their needs in these areas? I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of that before. When I see balloons deflate behind their eyes after I pop them with a verbal tirade, I know I’m doing something wrong. Now I’m learning what that is.

Kimmel says, “If we’ve done our job adequately, our children should leave our homes with a love that is secure, a  purpose that is significant, and a hope that is strong…Grace is not so much what we do as parents, but how we do what we do.”

And there’s the rub, isn’t it? I can’t be given a checklist on how to raise my kids with grace. It’s an issue of the heart, both theirs and mine.

More to come…