I was listening to a parenting seminar given by Kenneth Maresco of Covenant Life Church, and my ears perked up when he said the following:

When it comes to parenting, there’s a fine line between despair and desperation, and the difference is faith. There are many times in parenting when we are called to be desperate, and we will be desperate. We can be tempted to be despairing when we are desperate, but we need to remind ourselves who God is in His Ways and then we move to His ways and desperation leads us not to self-pity but leads us to prayer, God’s Word, fellowship, and worship. When we go to these four avenues, we can anticipate that God will meet us.

Maresco’s words come very timely for me because it is very easy for me to despair and dwell on self-pity than to be desperate and lean on God. The keyword in despair versus desperation is FAITH. Faith is what leads us to trust God. Parenting is certainly very challenging and I’m prone to despair and when I’m in the pits of despair, self-pity inevitably emerges. What a timely reminder for me.  God is ever present, even in our deepest distress and moments of feeling helpless.

My five-year-old son asked if he could help me mop the floor yesterday.  To be honest, I didn’t want his help at the time. As most parents with little children know, “help” from small children usually doesn’t turn out to be super-helpful. Most of the time they create more work while “helping.” My kitchen hardwood floor was quite gunky and it really needed a thorough mopping job, and of course I preferred that I do it myself to ensure quality assurance. However, I did not want to quench my son’s eagerness to help. Thankfully, it only took a few moments before I remembered what what was more important so I agreed to accept his offer of assistance.

Matthew helped me spray the area while I mopped. While doing the job together, I taught him bit by bit how to best do the task well. I admit that I was somewhat annoyed that I had to pause every so often to teach him a tip or two, accompanied by many reminders. My mom was there and she commented privately to me that it was really great that Matthew was helping. Her comment dissolved my annoyance and of course I felt bad for the way I was feeling. Thankfully I didn’t show my bad attitude explicitly to my son so he didn’t know what I thinking or feeling.

I have since repented of my annoyance and vowed to be better next time. Patience is much needed when teaching the little ones to do things. I have several older moms who told me that their grown children don’t help around the house because they never trained them to do chores while they were young. Just like me, they thought the easiest and quickest way to accomplish a task was by doing it themselves instead of having little ones helping out. Even though it means more work for me, I rarely reject my children’s offers to help because I know they have to learn while they are young. I am trying to the best of my ability to train my little ones to do chores around the house.

With every pregnancy I experienced depression for the first 16 weeks and it eventually tapered off by the 20th week. Depression was unknown to me prior to my first pregnancy. Most of my friends would describe my emotional life as even-keeled for the most part. When I was hit with depression, I had no idea what to do. With the second and third pregnancies, even though I knew better, it was still very difficult to deal with a mind that kept spiraling downwards. It seemed I was constantly bombarded with unwanted, downright depressing thoughts.

At this stage of my life, I don’t have depression, but I still have some unwanted and depressing thoughts. Ever since becoming a mother, the thought of losing my child to an unexpected event or illness often plagues me. If I dwell on or entertain the thought for even a few seconds, my sense of well being changes dramatically. Fear overwhelms me. Anxiety nags at my soul. What do I do in this instance?

In such times, I find the answer in one of my favorite verses, 2 Corinthians 10:5:

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Whenever a depressing or fearful thought comes to me, I try to remember this verse and take this thought captive and put it before the Lord. Every thought that goes against the truth must be taken captive. I find it helpful to memorize this verse and keep repeating it every time a depressing thought comes to mind. It is a way of talking to myself — instead of merely listening to out-of-control emotions. If I give the depressing thought a chance to dwell in my mind, it can take hold of me. The preventative measure is to remember God’s Truth.

Instead of dwelling on bad thoughts, we should dwell on things that are good and truth as written in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

A couple of weeks ago, Lois posted about how we’ve seen from those around us and the broader culture how crucial it is as parents that we endeavor to make our house a “true home.”

Ann commented:

I am interested to hear how you develop this out in your family. I have a similar desire, and even came from a “true home” but I’m not sure how to practice this. Looking forward to hearing more.

Because Lois and I are just starting our family, relatively speaking, we haven’t exactly got lots of experience and anecdotes. For now, it’s mainly in principle. That said, here are a few things we try to do frequently:

• Get down on the floor. That’s right, especially with little ones, it’s so easy to sit in our chairs — whether otherwise occupied or not. And just watch the activity, until otherwise beckoned to help with something or referee a tussle. But getting down on the floor, whether lying down or crawling, seems to create wonderful opportunities not only for interacting with little ones, but also seeing the world from their perspective. Good stuff.
• Make the most of “extra time.” Lois and I are both “schedule” people. That is, we thrive on a sense of predictability and regularity in our schedules. We like to have the kids in bed at a fixed time, eat at regular hours, etc. And we’re all better for the sense of order that results. But every once in a while, when there’s no real need to be right on time, we find that some spontaneous time of just tickling or laughing or other such “no brain required” activity. It especially warms our hearts when one or more of the kids takes the opportunity during such times to give an unexpected hug or kiss and say, “I love you Daddy/Mommy” and we get to return the gesture.
• Read books to our children. Self-explanatory, and something I need to do more of. It’s obviously nice from an educational standpoint, but also a great excuse to just sit down and enjoy good stories together. I think particularly of value are Christian biographies as well as well-told fiction.
• Minimize the amount of family activities that aren’t really family activities. By this I simply mean things like watching a movie together, where we’re all in the same room, but we’re not interacting. But this could also be stuff like having friends over, wherein their children play with our children and the adults (only) interact with each other. I also like to make the most of those times not merely to supervise the children, but to interact with them meaningfully.
• Invite your children to help in age-appropriate ways. One of the things we’ve seen as particularly helpful is inviting your children to be “part of things.” For example, as Matthew has gotten older, we’ve let him little by little help around the house. From fixing things to helping cook simple meals, we find that the more he’s part of things, the more he wants to be a part of the family. Even two-year-old Emmaline is a great helper. I often take particular pains to ask her to help clean up this or that, and she loves to do so. Note: this is not about lightening our load or teaching responsibility, though those two things frequently happen. It’s about being a family serving one another, and serving the Lord together.

Well that seems like a good start. Now is a great chance for all your Musings of the Dings lurkers to jump in with ways in which you’ve sought to make your houses real homes for your families.