Looking back on my childhood I can say that one of the lessons I am most grateful to my parents for teaching me is the value of hard work and a job well done. Another helpful life lesson from childhood would be the lesson of how to keep a clean house - though that might have erred on the side of obsessive compulsive - but I sure learned how to clean and appreciate a clean home.
Our children that came to us with a multitude of hurts carry with them a lot anxiety to manage that hurt. This anxiety does not allow our older children to relax and enjoy the comforts of home in the same peaceful manner that most children are able to enjoy their homes. So we manage the anxiety by making their days purposefully busy and scheduling intentional quiet times. Honestly, if you stepped into our home it would look a lot like chaos on any given day, but we have a plan and we work it. Some days it works well - some days we'd like a chance at a do-over. (Lamentations 3:22-23) Today I noticed that many of the struggles with our purposeful, daily schedule were missing and that without those struggles it was possible to see some sweet blessings of progress from the past year. What a treasure.
To anyone who is recently home, soon going to travel, or considering this journey in parenting, I would recommend purposefully adding to your children's schedules as much hard work with purpose as possible. For all of our children this has meant doing daily chores that include much of the housework. In case you are wrongly assuming that while the children are slaving away I am sitting around sipping my coffee, I should clarify that our older kiddos first needed to learn the difference between clean and filthy because this was not apparent to them. At times we still need remedial lessons. What we have found is that the children are learning to be respectful of our home, to be responsible for their material blessings, how to work alongside one another, and how to accept training, teaching and correcting from their parents. I end up working side-by-side and often hand-in-hand with at least two of the children, making household chores yet another way to facilitate bonding and attachment. Hard work in our home has been a wonderful thing. To help make chore time more joyous we crank the music and assign the helper of the week (one of the assigned chores is to be my helper) to take pictures with the digital camera so the children are more likely to put on smiling faces and work with a good attitude than with a grumpy heart. I should also add that in order to make our days purposeful with intentional learning and working experiences for the children, it takes many hours of preparation and prayer before and after the children's waking hours. So - a word of advice - purposeful planning takes time.
And on that note...just five short years ago I was teaching kindergarten to my hearts content, impatiently waiting for our first child. Organization and preparation was one of my gifts in teaching and classroom management. Oh, those were the days when I had two weeks of lesson plans written in advance, worksheets copied by loving and loyal parent volunteers, placed in file folders labeled and dated for the upcoming two weeks. Each morning I would arrive at school obnoxiously early to "prepare" my classroom, pull out the day's file folder, sort through the day's activities, read over the lesson plans, and rehearse in my mind the best way to meet the kids needs.
Oh, if only parenting these precious kiddos could be like my world of teaching. But God seems to have something better that He is teaching me. I have not been able to plan one single thing well this past year. I am learning to live daily in God's grace and to let go of my need to control and plan ahead. Our kiddos still need an excessive amount of purposeful planning in order to feel safe compared to other same-aged children who have not experienced tremendous trauma, grief, and loss. However, my planning these days is nothing like what it used to be. I can live one day at a time - often one moment at a time, clinging to the sovereignty of God. Purposefully.
4 comments:
Beautiful Megan! I love that it's practical and spiritual at the same time. Can't wait to put this into practice at my home soon! Nice pictures too!
so you would agree that morning chores are a good thing to do? Even if it isn't exactly for the same reason you are doing them?
Absolutely, Gianna! Morning, afternoon, evening - whenever you can squeeze them in as often as possible. At our house some chores are daily chores, others occur a few times a week and are more specialized. The chore chart rotates weekly. One person each week has the *best* chore assignment of being Mama's helper and the mail carrier. That person also is responsible for keeping the shoes by the front/back doors picked up. Everybody loves that job because that person gets to cook with me and do all the fun extra stuff. It has helped cut down on the fighting over doing things with me - I know that I get extra one-on-one time with that particular child that week.
This reminds me of when Jesus called the disciples to follow Him and told them to take nothing. He was putting them in a position to completely rely on Him rather than plans and provisions made for themselves.
I've been reading the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan, and when I read your post today, it reminded me of some of the message of this book, and actually of the gospel - loving others is loving God. And what an incredible measure of love is lived out when we take risks and go places and do things that wouldn't or couldn't be done if God were doing it through us.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you have taken risks, surrendered yourself and lived out His love in action and in truth before your family and everyone watching. You've got some sort of "Crazy Love" for God!!
You go girl!!
Robin
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