Lessons from Maxson II

I have to confess, today was a hard day for me to come to church and actually the last several times I have dreaded coming, its not because I don’t want to be with you or want to worship Christ with you, but it is because of my little man, Maxson. As a mom you always want your child to be loved by all and for them to be well behaved. Maxson is now at the age were he just wants to run around and play so staying with me during the sermon is near impossible. ☺ So starts the new adventure of leaving your child in the care of others. And so starts my anxiety. Living and working on a family farm makes for a tight knit community with not much contact with others, leaving Maxson only used to being with family. So the crying starts when I leave my little man with out mommy downstairs. Which in turn makes me feel like he is a burden on the ladies downstairs and also disturbing the sermon upstairs. But through lots of prayer (by husband Rick and myself) I came to church with little man in tow ready to leave him again with you wonderful ladies downstairs and geared up to miss half the sermon because of the crying. But through prayer and God’s grace it sounded like Maxson did good downstairs and I was able to listen (for the most part) to today’s sermon.

This all got me thinking about how a relationship between a child and mother (parent) is similar to that of our relationship with God. Rick told me today it will just take Maxson awhile to get used to being down there without me and to just let him cry and figure out that it will be ok and that I am right there if something bad happened. Putting it all together in my head, I thought that is what God does with us, isn’t it? How many times have we cried to God wanting him to help us or coddle us when things aren’t perfect? Its like the beginning of the song by Casting Crowns “Praise You In This Storm”- I was sure by now, God, you would have reached down and wiped our tears away, stepped in and saved the day, but once again I say amen and its still raining. Have any of you felt like that? Wondering when God was going to rescue you. I know I have thought that many times. But today I got a slim glimpse into how God parents us and how he must feel. My first reaction to Maxson crying is run to him and fix the problem and make everything better by him seeing me by his side, but knowing that the best thing for him is to figure out that he can be his own person without me being there constantly to help him. God must feel the same way, wanting to help us at every move but knowing that it is better for us to build character and strength on our own sometimes, even if we are never fully alone. The verse in Romans 5:3-5 states it best “but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” And with that 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Knowing this helps me as a parent and as a child of God and I will, like the songs says; continue to Praise God In The Storms.

I want to say a special thank you to all the Ladies who help downstairs with the kids, for all your love and patience for a child and mother learning how to deal with separation. I love you all!

Love Steph