Parenting, repenting and lessons of the heart

I am always trying to teach my kids a lesson. Always. Every cup of spilled milk, every argument, every accidentally broken picture frame, or bumped head is an opportunity to learn, “how to do it right the next time.”  Apparently, I start a lot of sentences with, “From now on I want you to …  ” Nothing more awesome than being critiqued in your parenting ways by your own progeny. I guess I need a new script.

It’s true, though. I hear my own voice say it a million times a day. Everything becomes a lesson. Every mistake, a way to learn how not to make the next one.

The teacher in me just can’t stop teaching. She is loud and bossy. Constant growth, improved measurements, and standards met are her idols. She knows that she is accountable, and she’s after the accolades that come with doing it all perfectly.

But that just never happens.

The messy table, the dirty shoes, the slammed door, the bad grade, the argument, the tantrum all become the subjects of the day. And my inner teacher is sure that she must conquer them, beat them down and check them off the list. She must pass every test and overcome every obstacle in order to tie the day neatly up all before bedtime.

“So that the next time this happens no one will make the same mistake.”

But it never works that way. Ever. The next day always brings more challenges or simply re-runs of the same challenges. It refuses to follow the well-planned script and bends the teacher weary under the weight of it all.But, then my eight-year-old stands in the middle of the chaos, dirt on his knees, chocolate milk on his mouth. He looks back at me with my very own eyes.

“Mom, I know I did it all wrong today. I’m sorry. You’re still the best mom in the whole world. Can I snuggle you?” He’s holding a blanket and tears have streaked his face.

I want lessons. He wants hugs. I want to make sure the punishment fits the crime. He wants to make sure I am still his mom.

And something breaks inside of me.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart …” (Jeremiah 29:13).

I know a thing or two about repentance; about remorse and the need to be forgiven. I know how I stray so far from a holy God and push forward through the mess I make because I fear the turning around. The lessons I need to learn are ones that change my heart not just my ways.

Be still and know that I am God. Seek the Lord and live. The prophets and the Psalm writers knew how God created it to work.

Our Creator longs for us to get it. He longs for us to turn around and walk toward him; to come dirty, broken, still covered in the evidence of all of our wrongdoing. But to walk toward him nonetheless.

I know all of these things, but the perfectionist teacher in me wants to make sure I do it right.

What if I am even repenting wrong? My brain is relentless.

But there that dirty boy stands clutching this blanket; his eyes full of longing to be near. Yeah. He and I share more than just our looks.

God said it to Moses on that mountain all those thousands of years ago when he wrote the Laws on tablets of stone for the very people he had saved and protected, the ones who refused to follow him. Yet, God gave the Laws again. He came near to his wayward people and their leader and he whispered: “Oh that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands that it might go well with them…” (Deuteronomy 5:29). 

Oh that their hearts… Oh that they would draw near to a God so holy; yet willing to come so close.

I gather the dirty repentant child and his blanket up into my lap. I don’t teach. I don’t correct or pull another lesson out of the mess we are sitting in. I just hold.

Life is hard. We go the wrong way, say the wrong things; make the wrong move and find ourselves far from the path we started down. And we wonder how it all went sideways. We wonder what repentance even looks like and if we have it in us to do it.

Oh that their hearts ...

I hear God whisper it over the boy curled into my lap. Turn around and come sit with me. That’s all it is. Bring the mess here and let’s sit together awhile; you and me.

A holy God and a broken sinner.

You see, the teacher in me forgets. She forgets that lessons aren’t all that matter. She forgets that repentance isn’t only about learning what not to do; sometimes it’s about learning where to go when the whole thing falls apart. Sometimes the heart just needs a place to rest.

Jesus came to teach us. He came to correct us, to guide us and to show us the way home. But here’s what I need to remember as we make our way through Lent. He mostly came to be with us.

He came to gather us in and sit with us in this place where all of our mistakes seem to follow us around. He came so that we would be reminded that we aren’t in this place alone.

He came because he first loved us.

Oh, that our hearts would be inclined to listen …