April 17, 2011

Lent, Suffering, and the Dreaded Justin Beiber Fan Club

Yesterday I started a post series on Mary and her compelling parenting.

I've been dwelling on her place at the cross-on how Mary suffered there too. In a way, She suffered Jesus' suffering, and His suffering saved the world.

Watching a clip from "The Passion of Christ" and reading the Biblical account of Christ's passion has convinced me that Mary was a good parent. Not surprising right. I mean God did pick her to parent His one and only Son. And reading about her silent presence at the cross leads me to believed that she parented Jesus in a way that blessed Him, prepared Him for the cross.

At Cecilia's school there is a group of little girls who like to exclude. Occasionally, they use recess to "play" Justin Beiber Fan Club. I don't know what 6 and 7 year old girls do to play JBFC, but play they do, and Cecilia is not invited to join in. She does not own any JB clothes or lunch boxes. She is in essence not a fan, and therefore not included.

On nights when she is hurting from being excluded my heart wants action and justice. It wants to dislike those little girls, it wants to email her teacher or other mothers and put a stop to such silliness (which is silliness in itself).  At the very least it wants to tell Cecilia how much better it is not to be a JB fan and build her up.

But this heart is not an excellent heart. And it is not a good parent either.

This hurt is small, but as my kids grow, the hurts will too. They will be excluded from significant things. They will be misused by others, denied opportunities, hurt by brokenness. If the fullness of my hopes for them come about, and they each walk into a passionate relationship with God, they will have to die to themselves, and that hurts. And I will have to make a choice.

As a mom I have considerable power both in the world of my kids and in their hearts. And it is important that I am learning even in these small hurts of little-dom to follow the Spirit. I must ask how my parenting of her exclusion from a silly club now is preparing her for suffering with Christ later. And preparing me to suffer her suffering. Because Paul tells me loud and clear- To know Christ, really know Him and live in the fullness of that knowledge means my kids will have to suffer.

And I have to fight tooth and nail against the compulsion to protect my kiddo's from all hurt, to dry all tears, to work out their lives so that they live in happiness and peace-as if I even have this power.  I have to start preparing each of them now to take up their cross and to follow Christ. Not to run from pain, or attack when hurt, or to avoid suffering, but to trust themselves to their Good and True Parent. And I have to start preparing myself for the wild, glorious and painful ride that God is hopefully going to take my Cecilia, my Gareth, and my little Audrey on.

1 comment:

Carolyn said...

Lee, this really struck me. I've been so angry lately because of the trash-talking that goes on in my little 4-year-old soccer league, wanting justice, wanting these kids to be shielded from all the hurts, especially my own child. So, thanks for the reminder that parenting isn't always protecting and that I need to carefully think through how to parent through suffering in a way that will even now point my small child to the cross.