I have a 4 year old boy. He’s a passionate, caring, strong willed, emotion filled little guy. I won’t lie to you that he pushes me to my limits at times (he’s not alone. The rest of them do too.) It’s just that he has a capacity to become very, very upset in a very, very short amount of time and there are times when I don’t know how to handle it. He and I have gone ‘nose to nose’ a few times this past year and boy–I have been pushed.
My mom, bless her teaching heart, passed along this precious exercise to me and I want to share it with you. What is a mother to do when her child’s heart is full of anger? When they themselves cannot help themselves from themselves? The exercise is this. Find that little one’s eyes. Ask them to look into yours. Grab your fist and ball it tightly. Tell them that in their anger their heart looks just like your fist: hard. Now take that fist and slowly open it up to reveal an open palm. Tell that precious child of yours that this is what happens when God takes away that anger; when He gives them a soft heart toward Him and toward mom and dad. Now tell them (and this is important) that you know what it means to have a hard heart. That you too need Jesus to make your heart soft. Loving. Kind. Obedient to Him.
I can share that this simple thing has done some ‘chipping’ away at my son’s angry episodes. It doesn’t work every time and it isn’t a fool proof solution, but it is a beautiful picture of what is the major goal: to help him understand his need and to point him to the answer for that need. I know that the temper tantrums aren’t going to dissolve into thin air just because I squeeze my fist, but that’s okay, friends. As Paul David Tripp put it in his recent podcast (Wisdom is a Person, Nov 12, 2020), ‘wisdom isn’t an outline. It isn’t first a theology. It isn’t first a set of answers. Wisdom is a person. And His name is Jesus’. I want, more than anything else for my children, that they understand who God is and who they are in relation to Him. That they don’t rely on doing better next time or picking themselves out of their own sin, but that they look to Jesus in worship and obedience that changes the way they view EVERYTHING ELSE.
This past week my husband and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. What did we celebrate on our anniversary exactly? Was it how beautiful, wonderful, steadfast, loving WE have been these last 10 years? Can I say that, really? Again, the podcast from Tripp is striking me today. What really should strike me about 10 years of marriage is this: “How would we ever have conducted this relationship without Christ?” (Wisdom is a Person, Nov 12, 2020). My hope is the character of Christ. My heart needs to be reminded again, and again, and again of this; and, as I parent, God’s grace is sufficient.
My son needs to hear this.
I need to hear this.