I love my children. But even as my children are different, I’ve come to learn that they need to be loved differently.

For example, my second son, Andrew, is arguably the most huggable and the most affectionate of our four children. He’s the first to offer a hug, or ask for one; and is the most likely to spontaneously tell me he loves me.

In contrast, our eldest, Matthew, is much more typical “boy” — some have remarked 200% boy — and is more squirmy and fidgety, especially when I tell him to come over so I can give him a hug or other show of affection.

For me, it’s been a real challenge to learn how to love Matthew (and feel loved by him). While Andrew expresses himself in ways that are altogether obvious and compatible with my personality, Matthew is whole different creature with a very different personality from me. So his boyishness has often seemed a hurdle in our relationship, and as much so with respect to learning his “love language,” in giving and receiving love, as anything else.

I’ve come to learn that while Matthew enjoys hugs and kisses from me, the impact of such physical affection isn’t as strong as Andrew. Over the years I learned what makes Matthew feel loved is by chasing him around the house, tackle him, and be wild with him. This type of rough housing is the door to his heart. Even though it’s lot easier for me to dispense hugs and kisses, I have to remind myself that the door to his affections is through being wild with him.

The lesson is simple: all children are different and they need to be loved differently. One of our tasks as parents is to find out what makes each of our children tick, and how to make them feel loved.  This is simply a specific application of a general tenet in parenting: that each child is uniquely made by God, and our job is to help nurture each child into a unique person fully realizing his/her potential by God’s grace.

Our eldest son turned 6 years old today.

We’ve all survived the most adventurous six years of our lives.

But more than survived. We’ve enjoyed them. We’ve been blessed by them. We’ve learned from them.

And most of all, we’ve loved these years, as we love our dear son Matthew. Not so long ago, he was a precocious, ambitious young toddler.

Now he simply surprises with us how “adult-sounding” he can be at times. He’s a smart, quick-learning, action-loving, heart-endearing, still-impulsive, growing boy. And Lord willing, down the road, he’ll be a godly man, and before long, he’ll be up and out of the house. Until then, we’ll just hold onto these snuggling years as long as we can!

For those homemaker-types out there, the cake is a chocolate brownie cake with white frosting and “fruit-by-the-foot” made in the shape of gift ribbon. And six candles to mark the occasion!

It saddens me that how commonly I hear comments which reflect a viewpoint that children are primarily obstacles, trials, challenges, or difficulties to be overcome. When our children are young, we are told by experts how to “survive” the so-called “terrible twos.” And we are warned that before long, once they hit the dreaded teen years, what we will have to “endure” and “negotiate” the troubled waters. And lastly, we are encouraged, that when our children finally turn eighteen, we can breathe a sigh of relief as we kick them out of the house!

Almost never do I hear parents or experts talk about the blessing of children or the joy of raising children. This kind of attitude does not make sense to me. If children are such a difficult obstacle, why have them?

I am not a starry-eyed, stuck in the cloud nine mother who doesn’t understand the difficulties of raising children. I’d be the first to admit that parenting is hard and it takes a lot of patience, endurance, and love. There have been plenty of days I’ve wanted to throw in the towel! Yet while I recognize these challenges, I’m also seeing the joy in the journey of parenting. The Bible, in Psalm 127, tells us — it does not “suggest” to us — that children are a blessing. I see my children as blessings from God and as difficult as they can be to raise, they bring me so much joy and fulfillment.

Let’s not lose sight of such blessings from God when we face challenges along the way. Let’s not merely focus on the trials, but count our blessings. Lastly, we must remember that these children have souls and we have the primary responsibility of shaping their souls. What an immense privilege to be doing something of such incredible eternal lasting value!

Our dear Andrew turns four today. It’s hard to believe that it has already been four years. We’re so blessed to have him in our lives. His smiles, hugs, and kisses are constant comfort to me. I now dubbed him as my “Therapy Boy” whenever I feel down.

Here is my “Therapy Boy” on his fourth birthday. He requested a rocket cake and I happily obliged.

Every once in a long while, things are not perfect in my world.

Just once in an while, one of my children are not perfect citizens.

Just once in a while, my wife and I are not getting along perfectly.

Just once in a while, things aren’t going right at work.

[Blogs are not a great medium for conveying tone, so let me be clear: facetious tone above. Things are often not going "right" by my reckoning.]

And when these situations arise, my first response is to get grumpy, and wish for things (or people) to go “my way.” Because, after all, if the world would only operate according to my instructions, things would be perfect! At least, that’s what I hear myself saying as I brood, resent, or otherwise wallow in self-pity. I can even come up with great delusional rationalizations. For example, if Lois is not loving me as she ought, “My wife is not doing everything she’s supposed to as a godly wife. The Bible says [insert brilliant exegetical insight here]. If only she would get her act together… then I’d be happy.”

This morning was one of those times when I wasn’t thrilled about my life, and people in my life. But in the midst of my grumpy, self-justifying mood, the Lord was kind enough to prick stab my conscience and force me to acknowledge that the real problem wasn’t Lois. It was my discontentment. That is to say, as much as I’d spent the previous several hours brooding over her imperfect behavior, it was quite clear to me that my discontent was what was making the situation “unbearable.”

Yesterday, I had read an excellent insight from Elizabeth Elliott from Amy Scott’s blog about “the cost of obedience“:

Elisabeth Elliot talks about [the cost of obedience] in Asking God Why. Speaking of missionary Amy Carmichael, she writes, “Loneliness was one of those disciplines. How–the modern young person always wants to know–did she ‘handle’ it? Amy Carmichael would not have had the slightest idea what the questioner was talking about. ‘Handle’ loneliness? Why, it was part of the cost of obedience, of course. Everybody is lonely in some way, the single in one way, the married in another; the missionary in certain obvious ways, the schoolteacher, the mother, the bank teller in others.”

Ironically, just last night I was remarking to Lois how excellent this insight was.  I’d told her about how so often, when we modern Christians encounter difficulty, our first response is to ask for relief.  We “modern” folks think that life in the shadow of the cross (!) is supposed to be easy, and when it’s not… we look for ways to “handle” it. Rather than, say, to accept it as part of living for Christ in a fallen world!

So like I said, even in the aftermath of reading this, I was busy looking for “relief” from certain marital circumstances that we shall not describe in detail but which the few you not in perfect marriages can simply imagine based on your own occasional challenges.

And God spoke clearly to me in the thick of it from a long-ago memorized passage from Psalm 42:

“Why so downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God!”

Then it was clear. I was putting my hope in my marriage. In my wife’s ability to deliver on her vows.  In her ability to not only be a Proverbs 31 woman, but Genesis-Revelation!  And she had (big shock) not been perfect.  And I was, therefore, not thrilled.

Instead, I ought to have been “putting my hope” in God. Looking to Him, and to His providence, to be my source of joy and contentment. No matter what comes my way. No matter who disappoints me.

I think the psalmist must’ve felt the same way when he penned those words. How easily we start listening to ourselves (grumbling) when we should be talking to ourselves.

Hopefully, next time I start feeling sorry for myself — and I’m sure it will be a long time before someone falls short of my expectations — I’ll be a little quicker to rebuke myself, and quicker to “put my hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him!”

Today, after we got home from church & lunch, I didn’t feel like being a parent.

Scratch that. I didn’t feel like parenting!

We got home after 2:30 pm. Lois and the three younger ones then went to take naps, but Matthew, my oldest (he’ll be six years old in just 12 days!), didn’t want to nap. He wanted me to play with him, but I was tired, so I told him to play very quietly downstairs, and I would try to nap in my office on a beanbag (since our other son was napping with Mommy, to both of their delights). I was only mildly successful in actually falling asleep. To Matthew’s credit, he did play quietly by himself, even building cleverly a clever family of giraffes feeding off a tree, all made of Duplo blocks.

An hour and a half later, with only a few brief interruptions from Matthew, including showing off his giraffe family (that was my first clue, he was so proud to show me!); our youngest woke up bawling. No one had heard her crying after waking up, and her bawling only made me grumpier.

During this entire time, I just wanted to “veg.” As in, be a vegetable, free from any cares or responsibility.

That mood of wanting to veg continued for several hours, even into the dinner hour, when we just warmed up leftovers for the kids to eat. Lois wasn’t feeling well, so that left me to nag the kids to eat, eat, eat. Which, of course, made me more unhappy, feeling “forced” to mind the kids.

After they finally ate, I returned to my computer, doing some stuff that needed to be done; and a bunch of stuff like web surfing and chatting online that didn’t! When Matthew (and the others) started coming ’round my desk, I kinda treated them bothersome flies, “swatting them away” and distractedly playing hangman with Matthew.

He didn’t buy it.

And neither did I, really.

Which is why he gave up trying 20 minutes later and played with Lois instead.

So when bedtime came around, and I told Matthew to head to his room to get changed, he started to cry, even as he started heading that way. “All you’ve been doing is stuff on your computer! We didn’t spend any time together at all!”

Wow, the stuff of conviction. Especially since the same thought had been nagging me since before dinner time.

So a few minutes later, after he came down in his jammies, I said to him somewhat repentantly, “What would you like to do?”

He told me he wanted to play tic-tac-toe. So with all the other kids in bed,, he and I went downstairs to the whiteboard and played tic-tac-toe for 15 minutes. He even cheerfully helped me to clean the whiteboard with paper towels & cleaning solution! He was clearly happy to be spending quality, one-on-one time with his daddy.

As we finished up and we were about to head upstairs for me to tuck him in, I apologized to him for not paying attention to him earlier. He cheerfully accepted with a content smile, saying, “That’s okay, Daddy.” I’m so thankful he accepts me in spite of my imperfections as a dad, and grateful that he does so want to spend time with me.

In the future, may I be more faithful to obey the calls of my conscience and beckoning of my children sooner, and enjoy the blessings that God has given me in them.

Emmie had a bad case of bloody nose this evening and after repeated rounds of wiping and stuffing her nose, we decided it was time to have her lie down with a cold compress on her head. At the mere mention of this, Matthew hopped to the task though we didn’t ask him. He led her to the couch, laid her down, put the compress on her. When I went to check up on her, I saw Matthew sitting next to her and reading to her. He even laid one of his hands on her head to make sure the cold compress doesn’t slip. I was so touched. He’s such a good big brother to her. It really warmed my heart to see him caring for her without me asking.

Matthew’s act of kindness is exactly what we’ve been teaching him for a while. Just when I thought it would never come or that he doesn’t care for his siblings, God shows me otherwise. This is a great encouragement to me because there is hope. I hope and pray that those who are struggling and are wondering when if ever your children will be kind towards one another, take heart and press on. If we persist in our training and teaching, our children will learn.