Tag: Parenting

Rock Collections

Colleen James11 Comments

Liam and I sometimes play a game on our morning walks, unbeknownst to him. We generally play it when he takes rocks from his “rock collection” with us. When this happens, I try to leave as many rocks as I can alongside the pathway where Liam got them in the first place. Liam, on the contrary, tries to take even more rocks home with us. The winner is determined by how many rocks return with us in the end.

This game probably sounds simple, but I have discovered over time that it requires skill and an element of sneakiness if I am to have any success. In order to dispose of the rocks, I must do so without getting caught. Liam makes a big fuss about it otherwise (Apparently, he is already a sore loser! Haha!). He, on the other hand, gets to collects all the rocks he wants right under my nose! I honestly don’t have much choice in the matter unless I want to deal with an upset toddler. Thus, we play the game, and I try my best to be stealthy as we play.

So far, I have won a few games, but Liam has won quite a few too. I’m not too concerned by my losses, however. I know that I will have the final victory when all is said and done. It might take months or even years before this happens, but I will win in the end and claim the title of champion once and for all. It is only a matter of time.

Recently on one of our walks, I was thinking about how easy it is to still have collections as adults, and although they may seem more sophisticated than a pile of rocks, they can be equally as burdensome.

Anxiety. Worry. Fear. Insecurity. Guilt. Shame.

These are just a few that come to mind, but a person’s collection is certainly not limited to them. There are a number of things we can collect over time, and we don’t even need a walk around the park to find them. Life in general is enough to make these collections possible. Fortunately, God offers a solution to these burdens. It all comes down to casting our cares on Him.

Cast your burden on the Lord,
And He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

Psalm 55:22

And similarly, in the New Testament:

 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (Italics mine)

1 Peter 5:6-8

I don’t remember talking to my parents much about my problems growing up. I’m sure I did from time to time, but I was the middle of five children, and with all the busyness of living within a big family, there wasn’t a lot of time for one-on-one moments with them.

I had a great best friend, however. We met when we were eight years old, and as we got to know each other better over the following months and years, she learned to recognize when something was wrong with me.

Although my natural tendency was to want to hide my problems or push them aside, she wouldn’t let me. She was very insistent that I tell her what was upsetting me each time an issue arose. It took a lot of patience and persistence on her part, but eventually I would tell her what was bothering me.

Over the years, it got easier to tell her what was on my mind. She had proven to me time and again that I could trust her with my problems. She was willing to listen, and she was kind and understanding toward me whenever I told her what was wrong.

When I think of casting my burdens on the LORD, I am reminded of how well my friend listened to me and cared for me in those times. What really amazes me, however, is to recognize that the kindness, compassion, and care she showed me is just a tiny fraction of the kindness, care, and compassion that God has for you and me.

He longs for us to bring our concerns to Him. He already knows them in the first place. He’s completely aware of all the items we are carrying around in our adult version of a rock collection, and when we bring each piece to Him, He can help us to deal with each issue and ultimately be set free.

Although the world, our enemy, and our own sinful flesh would cause us to try to collect more burdens over time, let’s remember that we have a very real Ally that is willing and ready for us to cast our burdens on Him. We don’t have to add to our collections anymore. We can, in fact, dispose of them, and we don’t even have to be sneaky about it! No matter how long it may take to deal with our issues, and no matter how often they may arise, we can take heart in the fact that, in Christ, we will have the final victory when all is said and done. In the end, we will truly see that we have won because we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). But while we wait for that day when we will never know any burden again, let’s continue to cast the ones we have on God. Let’s get rid of some rocks today.

Follow Up Questions:

Do you have a friend like the one I described? If so, what makes it easy to share your problems with that person? How are those traits a glimpse of who God is and how He cares for us? Let’s pray that God would help us to recognize all the more how willing He is to listen to us and that we would be quicker to bring our problems to Him.

Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Colleen James6 Comments

Liam woke up before 6 a.m. for a good chunk of the summer, and it was rough! The first week was especially brutal. I felt groggy most days and had to go to bed early out of sheer exhaustion.

With new nap problems on top of this, I didn’t have any time to myself. I didn’t write at all that first week, and I couldn’t find the opportunity to relax and unwind at the end of the day either.

A few weeks into our new “routine”, as I was battling my strong-willed boy to get his socks and shoes on so that we could go outside before it got too hot out, I found myself telling him how I didn’t need him to have a bad attitude. As it was, he woke me up too early again, and I was still irritated about it, so he better behave!

Not even a minute later, a familiar phrase came to mind.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

It comes from the following passage in Scripture:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-5

I immediately felt convicted. But to be quite honest, I felt slightly annoyed too. The truth is, I didn’t want to be convicted. I had already sacrificed so much for my son. Did I have to sacrifice my sleep and have a good attitude about it too?

I called my mom to talk about these issues, and as I expressed my frustration to her, she lent me a sympathetic ear and promised to pray. She also stated something she has told me before—that she believes God would use motherhood to refine me.

I’ll admit it’s not something I’ve wanted to hear. Being refined through parenting is painful! Fortunately, a friend and I have been reading through a book about motherhood for several months now, and one of the chapters in particular has helped me to see the process of refinement in a different light. It has caused me to recognize that I was seeing refinement through motherhood as a punishment when I needed to see it as a promise of better things to come.

In all reality, we must be refined if we are to be ready for greater ministry opportunities, responsibilities, or positions of influence in the future.

Just as a baby has to grow into childhood and then adulthood to enjoy certain activities and opportunities, we also must grow to enjoy and experience all that God has in store for us, and a lot of that growth will take place through refinement. Because of that, we need to see this process as a blessing and gift as we look forward to what God may have in store for us as a result.

I can’t say that I became an expert on graciously accepting the way God was refining me this summer, but I did learn a few things about how to keep no record of wrongs in the process. They are as follows:

Confess your feelings of resentment as they arise.

It was so helpful for me to do this. As I confessed my sinful attitude to God and asked Him to change me, He did. I wasn’t all the sudden the gracious, godly woman I wanted to be, but I was on the right track, so I kept confessing and asking God to work in me.

Set boundaries.

Keeping no record of wrongs doesn’t mean we accept any sort of beahvior or action from others. All relationships need boundaries in order to be healthy and thrive. Even relationships with toddlers.

After that first week of waking up between 5:30 a.m. to 5:45 a.m., I bought Liam an alarm clock that my friend (the one I’m reading the book with) recommended. It looks like a traffic light and is set to red during the child’s bedtime. It then turns green at the time that the child can get out of bed the next morning.

Although this alarm clock hasn’t kept Liam from waking me up, he’s making progress. Now he takes me back to his room for us to both lie down until the light turns green. It’s a huge improvement in my mind, and I also have to admit that I kind of love watching Liam get so excited over the light turning green each morning. It never gets old!

Learn to see the process of refinement as a blessing and gift.

I have a ways to go before humbly accepting the trials and hardships of life and truly seeing the process of refinement as a blessing and gift, but I want to get there. It’s something I need to pray for—that God will shift my perspective to see the goodness of such a “gift” as He prepares me for better things to come.

The best thing to come, of course, is becoming more like Jesus in the process. May He really help me (and us) to believe and long for that! Nothing else can compare to such a promise.

Liam is no longer waking up before 6 a.m., and I haven’t been struggling with resentment as much as a result. I’m sure it will someday rear its ugly head again, however, and I want to be ready to deal with it when it does. I’ll continue to pray that God shifts my perspective regarding refinement and that He’ll help me to love my family and others a little more like He does.

Ultimately, resentment and other wrong attitudes do me no good. So may God help me to choose forgiveness and kindness instead as I continue to learn what it means to keep no record of wrongs. And in the midst of these hard life lessons, may I choose to really believe that refinement is a blessing and gift that always comes with a promise—that the best is yet to come!

Jesus Loves Me

Colleen James1 Comment

I sang “Jesus Loves Me” to Liam a few evenings ago. It’s not a song I sing to him often because I sing other songs to him as part of our bedtime routine.

This night, however, I was praying once again that Liam would understand and accept the Gospel message at an early age, and I felt compelled to sing “Jesus Loves Me” to him after praying.

The simple refrain nearly brought tears to my eyes as I remembered a Christian radio program I had heard that explained the origins of the song. Anna Bartlett Warner was its composer, and she was a simple woman who didn’t think much about herself or feel like she had much to offer God. Nonetheless, she offered Him all that she had and was content to do menial and mundane tasks for Him.

In her mind, her older sister Susan was the talented one whom God would use mightily. She was writing an important novel, after all! Anna merely saw herself as a woman playing a supportive role to others making an eternal impact. She did this specifically with her sister by creating the words to a song that her sister could use in her novel—the song that we now know today as “Jesus Loves Me.”

Little did Anna know that, as the years went by, mothers around the world would be singing her song to their young children as they tucked them into bed at night. Little did she know that her song would create a foundation of faith in children, helping them to believe in God’s love for them even as they grew and became adults. And little did she know that her song would long outlive her, still so widespread, well known, and loved even more than a century after her passing.

Thinking of Anna’s story that night caused me to think about another one from more modern times. This story took place with a group of American college students that went to Chile on a mission trip during their summer break. Since they didn’t speak much Spanish, they were happy to run into a student that was studying English on the campus where they were ministering. This student, however, was disinterested in what they had to say and didn’t feel shy about letting them know it! The students gave this young woman a Gospel tract before leaving campus that day.

Although I can’t be certain how they felt, I imagine that particular day left them feeling discouraged and wondering if they were making any real impact. Little did they know how God was working in their midst!

Months later, that same young woman was cleaning out her sock drawer and found the Gospel tract the students had given her. She read it and came to faith in Jesus that day. Shortly afterwards, she joined staff with the same organization with which the American students had gone to Chile. And years later, she is still working in full-time ministry alongside her husband (my brother) and her sweet children.  That day in Chile had an impact. The small gesture of giving a Gospel tract to a disinterested English student had an impact. And that impact has made way for further impact of the Gospel to people of different nations. Many have been blessed as a result of my sister-in-law’s faith in Christ. My family and I have been too.

Stories like these touch me deeply, because in a time of life where I feel largely unseen and unknown, I wonder if I am making any real impact in the world myself. I believe that I am planting seeds into my young son’s heart, but what will become of those seeds? Will they bring forth fruit? Will there be a plentiful harvest as a result of all this planting?

Sometimes I wonder if Billy Graham’s mom had these same questions. When her son was a young boy, did she wonder if God was using her too? Did she go about her day completing her daily tasks and praying that God was somehow using her to make an eternal difference in the midst of it all?

The stories of Anna Bartlett Warner and the American college students help me to believe afresh that God is often working in ways far beyond what we can see and that He could be using me in ways that I do not yet comprehend, and that really encourages me.

These stories, however, also cause me to believe that perhaps my focus should not be so much on how I can make an impact on this world but how I can glorify God while I’m here. This seems to have been Anna’s focus, and she gained so much in living this way.

The truth is, I may never know the full impact of my life here on earth. But ultimately I don’t need to. What I need is to know that I am living each day to please God. In doing so, He could use me in ways far beyond my wildest dreams.

The Elephant in the Room

Colleen JamesLeave a comment

I have a confession to make. I struggle to believe that a stay-at-home mom (to a toddler, no less) can truly live a Spirit-filled, abundant life.

There, I said it.

I didn’t even realize this was part of my mentality until a little over a week ago, when I was reading chapter two of Priscilla Shirer’s book, One in a Million, while I waited for my annual checkup with my obgyn.

The chapter started with an anecdote about a time that Priscilla and her family went to the circus. As they were exiting the circus that evening, they saw an elephant behind a fence enclosure and stopped their car to stare at it for awhile. The youngest son asked why the elephant didn’t just run away when all that seemed to be stopping him was a flimsy fence. As they continued to admire the strong creature, they realized that something else was really keeping the elephant in bondage. His leg was chained down by a shackle to two bolts.

Priscilla went on to explain what she later discovered about circus elephants. Elephants are chained as babies when they are being trained to be part of the circus. At this young age, they are not yet strong enough to break free, so they eventually stop trying.

By the time they are grown, they are strong enough to escape their chains. Nonetheless, they have grown used to them and no longer try. They have settled for a life of less.

I love jewelry that has symbolic meaning. Ironically, I have had this necklace for years. It is only now that it has taken on a deeper meaning for me.

The chapter compared the circus elephants to the Israelites on the cusp of freedom from Egyptian slavery. It also compared the elephants (and the Israelites) to those of us who live in the modern-day world. We, too, have our bolts to break.

As I continued to read the chapter and to note what kept the believer from experiencing true abundance of life, a thought occurred to me.

You don’t believe you can truly live an abundant Spirit-filled life as a mom, do you?

It was more of a statement than a question. The answer was obvious to me, and I knew that this mindset was a bolt that needed to be broken in order to live the life God had intended for me. After all, how was I to live the abundant life at this stage of life if I didn’t even believe it was possible?

The subtitle for this blog came as a result of my thoughts that day, because even though my heart struggles to believe that I can live a Spirit-filled, abundant life as a stay-at-home mom, I know in my mind that God doesn’t exclude anyone from the opportunity to live such a life. To me, it’s a matter of reciting the truth and praying that God will let it sink down deep into my heart.

Lately I have been imagining Jesus right beside me in this journey. It helps a lot. It makes me realize how He is eager to be a part of every moment of my parenting. It matters to Him, and He can teach me more about Himself through it and make me more like Him as a result.

I’m finding myself having to address this bolt in my life a lot, this one that would have me to believe that it is too hard to live an abundant, Spirit-filled life in the midst of temper tantrums, messes, and plans gone awry. But I don’t want to be like the circus elephant. I don’t want to settle for a life of less. And I don’t have to. I have the Holy Spirit to reveal to me any chain in my life, and I have His Word to remind me of the truth. For this reason, I will continue to battle these thoughts day after day until I have broken free.