Manna For Moms

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Elliephants Never Forget

Megan Breedlove No Comments

This morning, my husband and I were discussing who was going to take my son to his occupational therapy appointment. I offered to do it, depending on whether or not my youngest was needing to nurse at that time. My husband said he didn’t mind taking Kenny. “I told Ellie I’d take her, too, next time I went,” he said, referring to our oldest. “But maybe she’ll forget.”

“Ohhhh, no, she won’t,” I thought to myself. “Ellie won’t forget.”

I didn’t say anything, however, because there was always the chance that she would forget. Like maybe…one chance in a million.

You see, Ellie never forgets anything that affects her. Being told to clean up a mess? Yep, she forgets I ever said that. But being told that she can do something, or go somewhere, or receive something—these things, she never forgets.

Sometimes, she doesn’t remember until after it’s too late, or just after the fact—as in months after the fact. Sometimes, she will bring up something I barely remember because it was so long ago, and I think, where on earth did she dredge that up from?

This time, however, she apparently remembered on time, because my husband came into the room later and said, “Both girls want to go, so I’ll take them, too.”

We should have known she wouldn’t forget.

If Ellie hadn’t said anything to show that she remembered, neither my husband nor I would have mentioned it. My husband would have taken Kenny to therapy by himself, and I would have kept Ellie at home.

There have been other times when I have promised something and then hoped my child forgot my promise. At times, I have remained silent unless the child reminded me of my promise, hoping to get out of having to make good on it. I suspect that you may have done the same thing, too.

Aren’t you glad God doesn’t treat us, and his promises to us, this way? Aren’t you glad he doesn’t make a promise, then hope we forget so he doesn’t have to make good on it?

I think it’s natural for human beings to hope to be released from a promise. Maybe at the time we made the promise, we thought we would easily be able to fulfill it, only to find when it came time to make good that it wasn’t convenient.

Maybe we promised something we never should have promised in the first place.

Maybe we promised something that seemed like a good idea, only to find that our imperfect knowledge and foresight had failed to anticipate changing circumstances.

Aren’t you glad none of these things applies to God?

God never hopes we forget his promises. In fact, he has gone to great lengths to make sure we remember.

I don’t know how many times in the Bible God promises that he will be with us. I do know that it’s a lot.

God wants us to remember his promises and to take him up on them. In fact, he tells us to ask and then watch him pour out blessings upon us. He wants us to count him trustworthy, and to ask him to fulfill his word.

Since God is omniscient, he never makes a promise that seems like a good idea, only to find out later that it wasn’t. Since he is perfect, he never promises something he shouldn’t. Since he is omnipotent, he never promises something that he later finds it inconvenient to fulfill.

Oh, friend, do you realize how precious this is? I know you would agree with me, in your head, that it is exceedingly precious. But do you realize it in your heart? Have you taken God up on his promises? Have you asked him to fulfill his word to you? Have you lived your life in confidence that he will fulfill that which he has spoken, knowing that therefore there is no need to worry?

Friends, let us rejoice that we have such a wonderful, amazing God, who not only makes perfect promises, but who wants us to remember them and ask him for them and delights to fulfill them in our lives.

So the next time you fulfill a promise to your child—or find yourself not wanting to—take time to praise our awesome God for his love and faithfulness, and to thank him for all his promises he has fulfilled in your life.

Numbers 23:19—God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

Malachi 3:10—“Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

That’s My Mommy!

Megan Breedlove No Comments

A couple times a week, the kids and I go to the YMCA. I enjoy working out by playing racquetball or lifting weights, and the kids enjoy the on-site childcare. The childcare takes place in a large room that has all kinds of different toys we don’t have at home, as well as a large-screen TV and a variety of videos. There are usually other children there for my kids to play with, too. Basically, my kids enjoy everything about going to the Y.

When we arrive, I drop the kids off in their room and go to the main building, where the fitness center is. When I’m done, I come back to get them.

And when I do, it’s one of the best moments of my day. Let me tell you why.

At this writing, Lindsey is two-and-a-half. She is completely adorable—cute, funny, quirky, and joyful. She enjoys herself in the play room, but when Mommy returns…well, for her, that’s even better.

When Lindsey sees me coming to pick them up, it’s like it’s Christmas morning for her. She grins and dances up and down, or starts running toward me, laughing with happiness.

But the reason why it’s the best moment of my day is because she’ll say to the childcare workers, as she points to me, “That’s my mommy! That’s MOMMY!”

Oh, she is so excited to see me. She’s so excited she has to tell someone about it—has to make sure someone notices that her mommy is here. Usually, she can barely contain herself long enough to point this out once or twice before she is impelled to run to me, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing with all her little-girl strength.

When she reacts to my presence like this, I can just feel the love for her welling up in my heart. I get excited, too, and I can’t wait to wrap my arms around her. Oh, the incalculable pleasure of having my child delight in my presence!

Dear sisters, do we delight in the presence of our Heavenly Father the same way? Do we bring joy to His heart by the sheer exuberance of our delight in Him?

I suspect that many times, we don’t. I know that I have been guilty of taking God for granted at times. I’ve ignored Him, or forgotten about Him at times.

Maybe you have, too.

Or maybe you have spurned Him at times. Maybe you weren’t interested in hearing from Him. Maybe you didn’t care about His presence.

Oh, friends, that’s a far cry from the joy and delight we were created to feel when our Heavenly Father is near—which is always!

The Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Oh, we know we’re supposed to glorify God. But enjoy Him? We don’t think about that.

If we forget that we’re supposed to enjoy God, we develop a relationship with Him marked by long stretches of joyless obedience, punctuated with brief moments of spiritual excitement, the results of retreats, or summer camps, or maybe a particularly moving sermon.

Should we obey God without question? Absolutely. He is Almighty God, and He deserves nothing less than our immediate, unquestioning obedience. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy Him.

God is not only perfectly holy, righteous, and powerful, He is also perfectly loving, compassionate, and beautiful. We can enjoy a God like that. We can, and we must. And we will if we mediate on His attributes, immersing ourselves in contemplation of Him in all of His beauty and goodness.

It’s easy to think that if God would just show up at our homes, as I show up at the Y for Lindsey, of course we would respond in loving worship.

But friends, He already has shown up. We don’t see Him in visible form, but we know that if we have asked Him to save us, and acknowledged Him as our Lord and Savior, He lives in our hearts.

In our hearts.

That means He’s with us constantly. We don’t have to wait for Him to show up to pick us up. He is already with us, every moment of every day of our lives.

Yet instead of letting this motivate our hearts to respond in joyful delight to Him, we let it cause us to take Him for granted.

Yes, He’s here. We know that, and we become so used to that fact that sometimes, it doesn’t mean all that much to us anymore. We acknowledge with our heads that it is important, but it no longer moves our hearts.

There’s something very wrong with that. If the God of the Universe inhabits your heart, and you don’t regularly and consistently delight in His presence, there’s something very wrong with that.

Delighting in God’s presence won’t look the same for all people. If you are a person who tends not to be very emotional, then delighting in God’s presence will probably look different for you than for someone who is a very emotional person. And that’s fine.

What’s not fine is for you to fail to delight in Him.

Do you need to ask God to cause your heart to delight in Him? Before you do that, do you need to ask His forgiveness for taking Him for granted, for failing to appreciate His wondrous nature?

Think about how you feel when your child delights in your presence. Don’t you want to know that you bring the same kind of delight to God’s heart by delighting in Him?

After all, He delights in you.

Psalm 35:9—My soul will rejoice in the LORD.

Zephaniah 3:17—He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Derailed

Megan Breedlove No Comments

My son Kenny loves trains.

The real ones that go by on the tracks not far from our house, blowing their horns and towing a hundred cars behind five engines? Loves ’em.

Those Brio-compatible ones that he can string together, build tracks for, and have hours of fun with? Loves them too.

Household objects that aren’t even real trains but can be placed one behind the other and pushed across the table to make pretend ones? Yep; loves ’em.

Kenny also loves to have people “play trains” with him, as he put it when he was three. “Mommy? Play trains with Kenny?” he would invite hopefully, his big brown eyes fastened on me as he awaits my answer.

“I’d love to, Kenny,” I usually said.

“Okay,” he would say delightedly, and sit down on the floor with the trains. Sometimes, he had a track already laid out; sometimes, we built one together.

We were doing just that a few months ago. Kenny had several sections of track laid out and hooked together. He also had about eight engines and train cars strung one behind the other (his attach with magnets), and two houses perched across the train tracks so that the trains could pass through the doors of the houses. We were having a good time moving his trains around the track and making train noises.

Sometimes, the beginning of the train was too far away from me for me to reach conveniently, so I would attempt to push the train from behind. There are grooves in the tracks, so I figured that should work.

Some of you already know what I’m going to say because you’ve had the experience: it didn’t work. While pulling a train works just fine, with all the other cars trailing neatly along behind, pushing a train causes some of the cars in the middle to derail. What you end up with is a car or two at the beginning and end still on the track, with everything in the middle in various stages of derailment.

Wow. What a metaphor for how things work in life, isn’t it?

When you do things the way they’re designed to be done (pulling the train), things work out just fine. When you try to force something to operate in a way it was never meant to work (pushing the train), much of it derails.

We know this. We know that some things in life have to be done a certain way if we want to experience success. So why, knowing this, do we push the train instead of pull it?

Sometimes, it would inconvenience us to do things the necessary way. Just as it would have inconvenienced me to have to reach for the front of the train to pull it, sometimes we will be inconvenienced when trying to do the right thing the right way. So we take a shortcut, hoping it will work and save us the extra effort.

Maybe we’re rebelling against having to do things a certain way. We’ve all been there—trying to do things our own way because we simply don’t want to do them someone else’s (God’s?) way.

There could be a thousand other reasons why we try to do things the easy way, even though we know we probably shouldn’t. Maybe, like me, we do things the wrong way (that day wasn’t the first time I had tried to push the train) because we’re hoping we can make it work out right this time so that we can avoid the consequences we’ve gotten every other time.

Sometimes, it’s not a big deal if we try to take a shortcut and it fails. Often, we can simply try again, the way we should have tried the first time, and things work out right, with no harm done. But let’s think about some times when there is harm done—when it does hurt us to try to take shortcuts.

The first one that comes to mind is in our relationship with God. As Christians, we all want to be close to God—or at least we say we do. Yet we act as if we can accomplish an intimate relationship with him by simply going to church and saying the right things—never mind the fact that we don’t study our own Bibles regularly and don’t pray regularly except maybe at mealtimes.

How about our relationship with our husband? Do we do things the right way, giving 100% effort, hoping to grow our marriage that way? Or do we try to take a shortcut—that is, try to effect change by nagging our spouse (which really isn’t a shortcut, because it doesn’t usually work, anyway)?

What about our relationship with our kids? Do we try to take the shortcut to winning our child’s heart of signing them up for classes they want, buying them what they want at Christmas, and sending the most creative, homemade Valentines with them to school for them to give their friends at the party, and believe that that’s sufficient? Or do we put our life’s effort into knowing them—connecting with their precious little spirits?

You know what? I’m glad God doesn’t take shortcuts. In fact, in order to establish an intimate relationship with us, God took the most “long cut” that there was: he became human and came to earth to live with us, eventually being crucified by us on a cross. He couldn’t have put forth any more effort than he did.

So the least we can do is do the same. In other words, as we go through this life he has given us, the least we can do is put all our effort into doing it “right”. I’m not talking about being a perfectionist or about never making mistakes. I’m talking about living life to the best of our ability—not half-heartedly, but wholeheartedly; not taking the easy way out, but putting forth the effort it takes; not skimping on the only thing that really matters (our relationship with God) in order to pursue temporary things that will fade away.

Is there an area in life where you are “pushing the train”? Do you need to start pulling? Ask God to show you. I guarantee that he will.

Proverbs 13:4—The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.

Motive

Megan Breedlove No Comments

My three older kids are all at the age where they can get around pretty easily without help. Ellie, I rarely offer help to, because she rarely needs it. Kenny and Lindsey, though, need help more often—or at least that’s the way it looks to me.

Apparently, I’m sadly mistaken.

Help them down out of the van? No way. They can get down themselves, thank you very much. Offer to help them put on their shoes? What could I have been thinking? Put the toothpaste on the toothbrush myself instead of letting them do it? You should hear the affronted wailing.

Every now and then, however, even they acknowledge that they need help. When they are climbing into or out of the tub, I usually grip their arm firmly to help steady them, because you know how it goes when wet kid steps on wet floor. This kind of touch, they don’t mind.

But the same touch, given for a different reason, causes screaming and crying.

I’m talking about when, for disciplinary purposes, I have to firmly grasp their arm to get their attention, or to lead them away from something—or toward a punishment. In these instances, the minute I grasp their arm, they either tense up and try to twist away, or they start crying with the wails of someone who knows they’ve just lost a battle.

So what’s the difference?

Motive.

Both times, it’s the same touch—a firm grip on their arm. Their reaction to my touch all depends on the motive they think I have.

If they think I am trying to help them, they welcome my touch and not only cooperate with it but rely on it to achieve their goal. If they think I’m doing or about to do something they don’t like, they fight it.

Don’t we do the same thing to God?

If we think he is trying to help us—trying to do something we appreciate—we welcome his involvement in our lives. If we think he is trying to impose consequences or force us to do something we don’t want to do, we fight him.

On the one hand, we perceive his motive as positive toward us—offering us something we appreciate. On the other hand, we perceive his motive as negative—doing something bad to us.

What we need to realize is the same thing my children need to realize: in both cases, the motive is actually the same, and in both cases, it is for our benefit.

What? How can we say that his motive is equally loving toward us when he brings us an unexpected financial windfall and when he brings consequences for our sin?

Here’s how: God always acts in love toward us. Sometimes, he chooses to give us pleasant gifts out of his love for us and for his glory. Sometimes, his love requires him to discipline us in order to help mold us into the likeness of his son, an eminently loving thing to do.

No matter the specifics of how God is involving himself in your life, you can be sure that his motive toward you is love. He doesn’t sometimes grasp your arm to help you and sometimes to capriciously harm you. No, whenever he touches you, it is always with your greatest good and his greatest glory—two sides of the same coin—in mind.

It’s not likely that if Kenny sinned, and I had to grab his arm, Kenny would think, “Mom is only doing this for my good. I won’t cry or scream, because I trust Mom enough to know that even now, her response is going to be in my best interests.”

But dear mommy friend, do you know something? We can respond to God that way. We can choose to trust, knowing in our head and in our heart that God loves us profoundly and acts only out of love.

Always? Yes, always, dear friend. Because God is love. It’s not within his character to ever act in an unloving manner toward those he loves.

So even when you don’t understand what he’s doing…when you don’t know why he’s doing it…when you can’t see past the tears, or when you’re afraid…you can trust his heart toward you.

He loves you.

Always.

Psalm 117:2—For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Creative Disobedience

Megan Breedlove No Comments

My son, Kenny, is very smart. He’s also very creative. Sometimes, these two qualities make for an interesting combination.

When Kenny was three-and-a-half, he had his own opinions about what he did and did not want to do (actually, he still has his own opinions in this area). Unfortunately, sometimes his desires conflicted with the desires his dad and I had for him.

Often, if I told Kenny to do something he didn’t want to do, he would say, “Noooooooo.” Each time, I would say, “Kenny, you’re not allowed to tell Mommy no. You say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

For awhile, we seemed to be making no progress. Kenny would continue to say, “Noooooooo,” and I would repeat “Kenny, you’re not allowed to tell Mommy ‘no.’” (If I had a dollar for every time we went through this routine, I would be writing this from my own personal island in the Bahamas.)

Then, one day…progress! Only…it wasn’t the right kind of progress.

I told Kenny to do something he didn’t want to do, and instead of saying, “Noooooooo,” Kenny said—are you ready for this?—“Mohhhhhhhhh.” That’s right—same inflection, but different beginning consonant. He was obeying the letter of the law but completely missing the spirit.

Kenny’s creativity didn’t stop there. Another of his favorite responses when told to do something was, “Whyyyyyyyy?” I tried to use the same response: “Kenny, you are to say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

But Kenny had learned how to beat the system. It only took a few repetitions of this command before he indeed stopped saying “Whyyyyyyyy?” and began saying, instead, “Whuhhhhhhh?”

Creative disobedience.

Kenny was obeying me in a legalistic sense. He had stopped doing the things I was trying to prohibit him from doing. But the deeper heart issues—the issues of selfishness and rebellion that caused him to disobey me—remained unresolved.

It’s the same way between us and God.

How many times does God give us a clear command in his word, and we try to find every way in the world to obey technically while still getting to do what we want to do?

I know you say to put you first, God, so I’ll attend church every time the doors are open. I’ll even serve on a committee or two. I just don’t have time to spend extra time at home reading my Bible and praying.

Or, I know you say to be kind to others, God, so I’ll donate to the county food pantry. But my kids (or my husband) irritate me so much, God, you can’t really expect me to always be patient with them.

Or even, I know you say to respect my husband, God, so I won’t criticize him in public. I’ll save that for when we’re at home.

You see? We try to find a way to get credit for obeying while still getting what we want.

Our deeper heart issues remain unresolved.

It is this kind of behavior that prompted Jesus to call the Pharisees ‘white-washed tombs’. It is this kind of behavior that causes a watching world to say, “Christians aren’t any different from anybody else.” It is this kind of behavior that drives a wedge between us and God and keeps our hearts far from him, even while on the outside, we’re earning all the stars for our Sunday School chart.

How do you think God feels about this?

He’s grieved.

Friends, God doesn’t want mere obedience. He doesn’t want an outward show. He wants our hearts.

In what areas are you holding back part of your heart from God? In what ways are you trying to maintain an outward semblance of obedience, while inside, you’re going your own way?

Spend some time today laying your heart before God and asking Him to lay it bare. After all, if you needed physical surgery on your heart, you wouldn’t put it off if you valued your physical life. If you truly value your spiritual life, you’ll want to make sure your spiritual heart is healthy, too.

Psalm 51:16-17—You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 139:23-24—Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Am I Okay, Mommy?

Megan Breedlove 2 Comments

I didn’t see exactly what happened. I had one of my younger daughter’s diapers in hand, and she and I were heading into my son’s room so I could use his wipes to change her diaper. As I walked toward the door of his room, I heard him fussing, and at the same time, I realized that he was crouched on the floor in a kind of odd position. From the expression on his face, I could tell he wasn’t seriously hurt, but I knew that he had fallen.

“Oh, you bonked,” I said sympathetically. (Around our house, “bonked” is the technical term for “fell down.”)

Kenny looked up at me with his big, liquid brown eyes, the expression on his face halfway between tears and calm, as if ready to go either way at any moment. “Are you okay, Mommy?” he asked pitifully. “Are you okay?”

He meant, of course, “Am I okay?”

“You’re okay, Kenny,” I said comfortingly. “You’re okay.”

Kenny got up then without crying, and went about his business. And as I continued on into his room to change my daughter’s diaper, I realized, oh, the parallels between Kenny’s situation and our situation as children of God.

Something bad had happened to Kenny. It was bad, and it was unexpected. He fell down, and it probably scared him and maybe even hurt him a little. He didn’t know how to react. Was this a bad situation? Was it not so bad? Should he cry? Shouldn’t he? What should he do?

Kenny sought out the best person he knew to help him make sense of the situation—me. “Am I okay, Mommy?” he asked in his own way. “Am I okay?”

I calmly and comfortingly assured him that he was, in fact, okay, and that was all he needed to enable him to move on and put the “bonk” behind him. He didn’t stay there on the floor arguing with me or doubting me; he accepted my assessment of the situation and moved forward in life as if he knew—which he did—that what I had said was completely true.

Do we do the same with God? First, when we encounter the unexpected bonks of life that scare us and maybe even hurt us a little (or a lot), is the first thing we do to seek out God to make sure we are okay? Or do we focus on our pain, physical or emotional, and decide we’re not okay before we even talk to him?

Kenny could have done that. He could have started crying, and he would have been justified. It’s okay to cry and be upset when you’re scared and hurt. I would have comforted him, and eventually, he would have moved on anyway. But the way he chose to respond worked out much better for him.

There are times in life when we are hurt, and there is no possibility of seeing it otherwise. If Kenny had broken his leg when he fell, he would have been undeniably hurt. Likewise, when tragedy strikes us, we are undeniably wounded. Life hurts sometimes. Pain crops up unexpectedly, and it scares us. And like a small child might, we cry.

That’s okay. It’s okay to cry when we’re hurt, and to seek comfort in the Father’s arms. But we have to be careful not to decide we’re seriously injured when really, we aren’t. Sometimes, it’s better to check with the Father for His wisdom on how to react, before we decide we’re seriously wounded.

But during those times when the hurt is unmistakable, when we’ve come crashing down, or our life has come crashing down around us, we cry, and we should do what Kenny would have done, had he been seriously injured—seek out our Father. Maybe we can’t run to him because we’ve been injured so badly, but you know what? He’ll come to us. That is part of the beauty of His love and grace.

Either way—as we check with Him to discover how badly we are injured, or as we cling to Him sobbing—eventually He’ll tell us, “You’re okay. Child, you’re okay.”

God doesn’t minimize our pain. Remember that He lived on earth, too. Scripture tells us that He cried when one of His best friends died. He knows physical pain, and grief. He knows tears. He knows sorrow.

But He also has an eternal perspective. He knows that whatever might happen to us, we are still okay—and not just when our circumstances are pleasant. He knows that we can be okay even in the midst of agonizing pain and tragedy.

How can we be okay when inside, we’re breaking? When our heart is being torn in two, and we feel like we can’t take it? When the blows just won’t stop coming, and we feel like maybe we’ve gone down for the last time?

The answer lies in His loving heart and hands. Because ultimately, what makes us “okay” has nothing to do with our circumstances. Ultimately, we are okay because God loves us and will never leave us. If we equate being “okay” with having pleasant circumstances we feel equipped to handle, then we may spend much of our lives being “not okay”.

Dear friend, where does your security come from? Are you okay today? If not, crawl into the Father’s lap as fast as you can and talk to Him. Hear His loving care for you. If you are okay—is it because your circumstances are pleasant? Or is it because you know in the depths of your soul that no matter what happens, you will be okay because being okay comes from eternal security and not from temporal pleasantness? Oh, friend, if you’re not sure, crawl into His lap and let Him speak to your heart and soul.

You will be okay.

He promises.

Romans 8:38-39—For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hockey Referee

Megan Breedlove No Comments

For Mother’s Day, I’m thinking of asking for one of those black and white striped shirts like hockey referees wear. I figure that I spend a significant portion of some of my days pursuing the career of referee, so I need a referee shirt. Plus, you don’t see hockey players failing to take the referee seriously. I think it’s because of the shirt. So maybe, if I wore a referee shirt, my kids would take me seriously.

I’d also need a whistle—one of those big ones that with one blast could send birds dropping out of the trees like rocks. I don’t really want to injure any birds, but it sure would be nice if I could blow a whistle and have my kids stop still.

So there you have it—a perfect Mother’s Day gift. A referee shirt and a whistle.

I think these accoutrements would have helped me one particular day that I remember. It was not a good day, in terms of my kids keeping their hands to themselves. My son, who was two-and-a-half, had developed a taste for hitting. He didn’t do it to be mean. He just did it because his sister (either one) was in his way, and he wanted her to move. Or, she had made him mad—which apparently meant he had to hit her in revenge. He also liked pushing. Again, he didn’t do it to be mean. He just wanted to see what would happen if you gave a quickly crawling baby a strong push on the bottom. (Note: she’d fall flat on her face and begin to cry.)

So there was Kenny’s desire to push or hit anyone who was in his way or made him mad, or to do the same any time he wanted to see the effects. And this desire of his kept running smack-dab up against the desire of his older sister for him not to do that. She didn’t like being pushed or hit, and she wouldn’t get out of his way, even when he did it. She would stand there and scream and cry like he was killing her, but she most certainly wouldn’t walk away (because that might mean she wouldn’t get out the door first and therefore wouldn’t get to choose the coveted rear seat in the van).

So if I had the right gear, I could stop all these little brouhahas quick as—well—a whistle. (Remember that if you have the right gear, even hockey players, who are notorious for fighting, have to take you seriously.) I could march right up to them and blow the whistle. They would stop, surprised, and look at me. I could then send the offender to the penalty box. That’s nothing more than a time-out for hockey players. (I wonder if a mother invented that.) After the penalty was over, the offender could come out and play nice, and the offended party could let him (or her) back in the game.

Sometimes, it does indeed work like this. That’s what time-outs are for. But I get really tired, just as you do, of spending my days repeating the same things: don’t hit your sister. Be nice. Say you’re sorry. Stop screaming. Your brother was there first. Give that back. And I get tired of hearing screams and tears of outrage from my barely-wronged daughter who feels she has been grievously wronged and is giving a performance worthy of an Oscar. I’m really tired of this, I sometimes think to myself. Why can’t they just get along?

Do you ever wonder if God thinks the same thing? Not about our children, but about us? Do you ever wonder if he gets tired of refereeing our petty squabbles?

Though it isn’t right, children can reasonably be expected to do a certain amount of fighting and arguing, and maybe even hitting and pushing. They’re children, after all, and they don’t have the emotional maturity to deal with conflict in the way we would like them to. They also may not have the Holy Spirit in their hearts yet, convicting them of sin. But we who are adults and have received the precious gift of the Holy Spirit should know better. Yet we continue to grumble against others; we criticize; we say other things we shouldn’t say; and sometimes, we even push and hit. And we put the Holy Spirit in the middle as referee.

I know when Kenny’s hitting Ellie, and when she’s screaming and crying, they don’t feel much like loving each other. So what do I do as a parent? I try to help them learn to love at all times so that these kinds of situations (where loving gets difficult) never occur in the first place. God has done the same thing. He has given us his Word and his Holy Spirit to help us learn how to love others “in advance”—so that things don’t get to the point of conflict.

So the next time your kids are fighting, put on your referee shirt and go break it up—and then ask God to bring to mind any situations where he’s had to act as referee between you and someone else. And then go and make it right.

Psalm 133:1—How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!

Two Crackers

Megan Breedlove No Comments

This summer, we attended our second annual family reunion at a campground in East Texas. The country was beautiful, with tall pine trees and lush green foliage. (“We’re in a jungle!” Kenny shouted, awed, as we passed between rows of huge, leafy trees whose branches almost met overhead.) Walking through the campground, one of the first things I noticed was the sunny, quiet calm, where the only sounds I heard were nature’s sounds. My spirit eagerly drank in the peace.

It was wonderful to be with family. We all live far enough apart that we don’t see each other as often as we’d like. So we met at the campground for a Friday-Saturday reunion, to spend time enjoying each other and catching up on news.

Being as this was a southern family, we also enjoyed a lot of good, home cooking. You just can’t have a southern family reunion without massive amounts of homemade, special-recipe, delicious food. Since there were several children present, there were also copious snacks.

At one point, my two-year-old daughter, Lindsey, wanted a snack. “Cookies!” she requested, pointing to the Ritz crackers.

“Those are crackers, sweetheart,” I said. I picked up the box of crackers and a Styrofoam bowl from the counter, preparing to pour several of the crackers into it.

“Two crackers!” Lindsey said, holding up her hands and making gripping motions.

“I’ll get you some crackers,” I assured her.

“I want two crackers!” She extended her arms straight up, her hands ready.

“I’ll get you some,” I repeated, pouring several crackers into the bowl. As I did, I thought to myself, It’s a good thing I didn’t give her only what she asked for, or she wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much.

I bet God feels the same way when He thinks about our requests.

In His Word, He not only invites us, but commands us to come boldly to His throne of grace with our requests. (Hebrews 4:16) Elsewhere, He tells us to test Him and see if He will not pour out His storehouses of blessings upon us. (Malachi 3:10) We are also told to come to God on all occasions with all kinds of requests. (Ephesians 6:18) Perhaps most bluntly of all, we are admonished that we “have not, because [we] ask not.” (James 4:2)

Let me be clear: these verses are not necessarily talking about material blessings. Yes, it is right to ask God for material things we need. After all, He has promised to provide for us. But these verses refer primarily to spiritual blessings.

There is no way to obligate God to provide us with a new car or new clothes—indeed, with anything—merely by asking “correctly”. He has, however, provided us with “every spiritual blessing.” (Ephesians 1:3)

Dear mommy friend, are you asking God for two crackers? Or are you asking for a bowlful?

Are your prayers limited to requests such as, “Please be with me,” or “Please bless so-and-so,” or “Please make my kids behave”? Or do they include larger petitions like, “Jesus, You came so that I could have abundant life. (John 10:10) Right now, in the midst of diapers and housework, tantrums and carpools, life doesn’t feel too abundant. I ask You to show me what the truth of Your Word looks like in my circumstances, so that I can experience abundant life and others will be drawn to you”?

Fortunately for Lindsey, I desired to give her far more than she asked for.

Fortunately for us, God desires to give us far more than we ask for. In fact, He desires to give us “abundantly more than all we ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20)

So ask Him for your deepest needs (which usually aren’t material things at all). Ask Him boldly.

And if you are asking for His glory—which is key—you can expect to receive.

Not just two crackers, but a bowlful.

Ephesians 3:20-21—Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Spinning Into Control

Megan Breedlove No Comments

My daughter Lindsey is so much fun to play with. She’s cuddly and adorable; she has a great laugh and grin; and she enjoys life to the fullest. When she was around a year old or so, one of the games she loved to play was “spinning”. I would stand up, holding her facing me. She would wrap her legs around my waist, and I would cradle her in my arms as she leaned back, supporting her head and back. Then, we would spin.

Oh, I can still hear her giggles and see her delighted grin. She thought spinning was the greatest game in the world. I’d spin her once in a circle and stop so that I wouldn’t get dizzy. Lindsey, on the other hand, could go in circles for hours, or maybe days, without getting dizzy. When I stopped, she would beg me to start again.

I’d usually oblige her, spinning her in another circle, stopping, and letting her talk me into doing it again. We’d do it again and again, until I got tired and had to quit.

Have you ever played this game? If you have, you know that as your child leans back in your arms, you must carefully support him or her. You also know that as you spin, the force that is generated pushes your child back against your arms and hands. The faster you spin, the harder your child is pushed back against your outstretched arms.

Lindsey and I were spinning one day when I realized something. Our game of spinning is a lot like how life is with God. Let me explain.

Sometimes, God holds us close against his chest and cuddles us, as I do for Lindsey. Other times, however, as life spins crazily, we find ourselves held not against his chest, but against his outstretched arms. The faster life spins, the stronger the force pushing us against his arms beneath us.

Just as it looks to Lindsey like she is farther away from me when she is lying back on my arms, so life looks to us sometimes. We look at God, and he seems farther away. What we want is to be held and cuddled against his chest, and when we don’t have that, we get frightened and upset.

Was Lindsey frightened when I spun her? Not at all. Neither should we be frightened when life is spinning us, because just as Lindsey knew, we know that there are arms underneath us, and that the faster the spin, the stronger the force holding us in those arms.

We may not giggle and laugh as Lindsey does when we are spinning. For us, sometimes the spinning isn’t fun at all. Sometimes, it’s tragic. Sometimes, it’s just our own fault. Sometimes, it’s terrifying.

But think about this a minute. Could Lindsey feel the force pushing her back against my arms? Of course, she could. The faster we spun, the more solidly she could feel my arms beneath her. That’s what allowed her to laugh, squeal, and enjoy the ride. Without the feeling of my support, she would have been terrified. With my support, she was exhilarated.

Could we experience life the same way?

Maybe. Maybe not. When circumstances are agonizing, we’re not going to laugh. It’s not going to be fun or exhilarating at all.

But we don’t have to be afraid. We never have to be afraid. The same arms that cuddle us close are the same arms that hold us secure, even when life seems to be spinning out of control. In fact, it’s during the times when the spinning is craziest that those arms hold us most strongly.

We often use that phrase—spinning “out of control”. Dear friends, let me suggest a better phrase.

How about spinning “into” control?

It’s true, isn’t it? And it reflects the principle that when the spinning is strongest, so is the support. We never spin out of God’s control. God never loses control of us for any reason. In fact, during the times of life that feel most out of control, he gives us the incredible gift of letting us sense his arms beneath us the most strongly. As we spin, we are pressed into his arms. We spin into control.

The next time you’re spinning—and the time will come—remember this. Take a moment, and feel those arms beneath you. He’s got you. He’ll never let you fall.

Isaiah 26:3—You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.

Do-Over

Megan Breedlove No Comments

“H, I, J, K, L, O…H, I, K…H, I, J, K, L, M, O…L, M, O, P….”

I sat next to my daughter on her bed as she did her best to sing me the Alphabet Song. I had sung her two songs from her book in place of a bedtime story, and now, she wanted to sing me one. Only…it wasn’t going smoothly.

“Q, R, X….”

She knew the song by heart, but she was struggling, index finger extended, to point to each letter in the book as she sang it. For some reason, she kept making mistakes, and each time she did, she would start over.

As I sat watching and listening to her struggle to do something she knew she should have been able to do, I was struck by the parallels to my life as a mom.

Sometimes, I make mistakes—repeated mistakes, even—on things I know I should be able to get right. I snap at the children. I hurry them along when I should stop and take time to look at that interesting rock. I punish them for things that aren’t wrong, exactly, just a result of being their age. Or, worse, I fail to hear the cry of their hearts and only hear their voices grating on my nerves, and I react.

Those times are when I wish I could have a do-over. You remember “do-overs” from childhood—those blessed opportunities where you got to pretend your mistake never happened and do the whole thing again, getting it right this time. Best of all, everyone else would pretend like your mistake never happened, too. After the do-over, you could proceed with an unblemished record and no negative effects to anyone.

Don’t you wish that as mommies, we could have do-overs? That when we do something we know we shouldn’t, we could be certain that the effects were permanently wiped away from our child’s precious spirit?

Friend, let me tell you something. You and I both know that what is said can’t be unsaid, and what is done can’t be undone. But praise God, we also know that in Christ, there are do-overs.

If you have acknowledged your sin to Christ and have repented of it, acknowledging Him as your Lord and Savior, then you have been given the biggest do-over of all. But it doesn’t stop there. Christ didn’t come to wipe away only the guilt for the sins we committed before being saved. He wiped away the guilt for later sins, too. If we repent of our sins—in other words, confess them and turn from them—God will forgive us. It’s another do-over. We can wipe the slate clean and start again.

As Ellie tried and tried again to get it right, she awarded herself as many do-overs as necessary. Finally, she did succeed. She got the whole alphabet right, all the way through. And then, you know what? She moved on. She didn’t condemn herself for not having gotten it right the first several times, or for needing—and using—do-overs. Instead, she simply kept “keeping on” until she accomplished what she knew she could do.

Why don’t we as moms do that? Why do we decide to condemn ourselves for not getting it right the first few times? True, sin is sin and should never be taken lightly. It should be repented of and confessed. But after that’s done, why stay there wallowing in guilt that no longer exists? Why not just move on—to the next day, the next opportunity, the next activity?

You know, the way we move on after sin in our lives will teach our children a lot about the God they will hopefully one day serve. If our children see us repenting of and confessing our sin, then moving on as if forgiveness is a reality, they will learn to do the same. If they see us living as if we are unforgiven, they will learn that forgiveness is nothing more than a “church word” that doesn’t apply to real life.

So the next time you get the letters out of order, before you try again, stop and confess your failure to God. Ask for his forgiveness. And then move on, towards the letter Z. With his help, you’ll make it through.

1 John 1:9—If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purify us from all unrighteousness.

Romans 8:1—Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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