Grow or Be Happy?

So, if you're tired of hearing my "faith revelations based on motherhood" you might want to skip this post. :) I can't help it. This has kind of turned into a journal for me and God happens to be teaching me lesson after lesson through my son. It's so much easier to get my thoughts down if I'm typing instead of writing, so here ya go...

Roman is definitely in a screaming stage. It's not all the time. Sometimes it's when he's mad, sometimes it's when he wants attention, and sometimes it's just because he's so excited he can't hold it in anymore!! Whatever the circumstance, it's not something that we tolerate. We have been trying to be calm and consistent with disciplining him. We tell him that it's not okay to scream, remove him from the situation if it's necessary, and tell him he needs to use some nice words instead. It seems to be doing the job, but it's a slow, and sometimes painful, process. You'd think it wouldn't take him long to catch on that yelling at the top of his lungs really doesn't get him anywhere. But, then again, we yell at God...we tell him what we want and under what terms we would like things to happen. That doesn't get us anywhere either, but we aren't about to change our selfish ways.

Sometimes it's a challenge to keep your cool when your child is screaming bloody murder in a restaurant, or letting high pitched screaches out during the sermon at church. (Okay, he is usually not terrible, but when it's your child you tend to think it's a lot worse). It's hard to resist the temptation to just "make him happy". Of course, I want him to be happy. I want him to enjoy life, have fun, and go along our merry way. But, I am constantly reminding myself your job is to help him grow, not to make him happy all the time.

Naturally, I try to create environments where he will be happy. I try to "set him up for success" so to speak by making sure he is rested, fed, and has something fun to do. But, when it comes right down to it, I care more about him becoming a person of integrity than I care about him being mad at me and crying about the situation we are dealing with right now. I don't like it. It's not fun. But, it's what we, as parents, do... and what God, as our father, does.

He does it out of love. He denies us the job we really wanted. He takes us out of a relationship that we thought was "it". He guides us into a place in our lives where we think we can't possibly be happy. It's not what we wanted. But, God cares more about us growing in our faith, He cares more about bringing people into the kingdom, than he does about our "happiness" in the moment.

You might think that's pretty harsh...and, to an extent, it is. You might say "God wants joy for me"...and he does. But, "joy" might look different than we thought. Joy in Christ doesn't always mean that you are in the ideal situation. Joy in Christ means that you are thankful in any situation. It means that God is going with you and, therefore, we have nothing to complain about. He has a plan. A plan to give us hope and a future. The ideal situation isn't until we are with Him in heaven anyway. How he gets us there is his business. We just have to be willing to let him help us grow...and care more about that than we do about our happiness.