Always Teaching, Always Learning

When we think about our children and ourselves as a unit do we regularly think about how they are always leanring and we are always teaching, something?!

I often think about the things I was "taught" as a child even when I wasn't specifically learning. Did I know my parents accepted me as me, without any extras? Was my performance wrapped up in the ways people related to me? And my other thoughts swirl around in my head when I think about the expectations I place on my children.


I am an expectation machine....I have to repent often of making unbiblical expectations.

Every day I am forced to stand against unbiblical expectations placed on my children by outside sources. The world places expectations on them (should they really have an Ipod at 5? Or the kid who tell my son he can't play without a watch); teachers or other authority figures place expectations on them (should I really agree with the dissappointment of the teacher/authority when my child doesn't memorize all the obscure bible passages they should?); Even grandparents can place unbiblical expectations on our children (when eating out family members can expect children not to talk or to sit perfectly still having no personality and act just like adults--bored adults).

It is hard for me to balance normal expectations along with ones which are only rooted in prefernces. But why should my preferences translate to my children? They may have different preferences? They may want to get their ears peirced (the boys)! I personally don't like men's earrings, but that doesn't mean I think my sons shouldn't do something like that! I want my sons to know that their decisions (no matter how horrible or trivial) do not have an impact on my relationship with them! However, I will not stand for openly selfish and self serving attitudes or actions. Their sin can impact our relationship,but it still cannot alter my love for them, if infact I am living the gospel as Christ did.

I want them to know that bilical mandates are not changable for me and preferences are trivial. "Children obey your parents in all things" is a truth I want them to understand. "Love one another that people may know that you are my disciples" is a lifestyle I want them to pursue. "If any one wants to come after me, let him take up his cross and come behind me" is a reality that I want them to know about before they start on the road to salvation (which I know in part they are already traveling as passangers right now) as adults.

Living  life as a mother separating my preferences (sleeping habit, hobbies, hair styles, tempraments, genderdifferences, etc) from my Biblical conviction (truth is unchangable, Christ is the only way, The gospel is costly, love isn't optional, obedience is mandated) is a hard balancing act.

But I must make the distinctions between biblical principles and my own preferences. And I cannot forget that my children are not  project, but people with personalities and ideas that are unique to themselves. Do I really want to stifle all that God has made them to be, by trying to conform them to a mold of my own making??