Boiling Point

Have you ever reached that point in parenting where you stand bewildered with heart aching and wonder, “What the heck am I supposed to do now? Where is the darn manual that will show me how to get these kids to mind?"

Or at least tone down the attitude.

I seem to get to that place in cycles. Things will go smoothly. Kids obey more than just sporadically. They actually seem to care about my feelings and seem to want to please. They don’t buck the house rules too hard.

I get lulled into thinking we’re past the hard stuff. The kids tested the limits and now we’ve all settled in and things will run smoothly until they graduate and move on to college.

WAAAHHH! WAAAHH!! (that’s the thinking error alarm screeching in my ear)

Kids are soooooo unpredictable. Especially with all those pre-pubescent hormones swirling through their veins and turning them into short little Jekyll and Hydes.

And it can hit out of nowhere. One minute life is sailing along fine and dandy and the next I’m running for my closet. Sounds odd, I know, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time in there.

It’s where I go to vent, to cry and to ask God for help (after I get done complaining about the little critters).

He’s patient. He’s doesn’t condemn when I get a little loose in my word choices. (My little cherubs know just the buttons to push to drive me into my flesh in a nanosecond.)

But I’m learning something. We are spirit and flesh. My spirit desires to please God, but it’s severely hampered by the flesh I drag around every day. That flesh craves sin. (For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. Galatians 5:17)

The sad thing is we can’t overcome our flesh. As Paul states in Romans 7, we don’t do the things we know we should (righteous living) and we do the things we know we shouldn’t (sinful living).

That’s why I RUN to my closet. I don’t want to stay in my flesh one second longer than I have to. And if I go to my dad (God) and ask for help, he’ll do just that.

He’ll correct my mind where my thinking is off base (usually selfish) and heal my heart where it’s been wounded by careless words and the fleshly thinking of young kids, AND he’ll show me what to do next.

Closet time gets me reconnected to God. When we disconnect, and we will many times a day, we fall into sin. That’s not a place I want to live.

Do you have a space you go to vent and reconnect? I would love to hear about a time when you felt that frustration and tension starting to grow fangs. What did you do to get out of that place? Leave a comment or send me an email.

Let’s grow together!