It kills me to see my kids in pain. \u00a0I hate when they suffer with colds and flues, cuts and bruises. \u00a0And it pierces my heart when their hopes and dreams go unfulfilled. \u00a0 Sometimes, I wonder if I feel their pain more intensely then they do. \u00a0And then I wonder if that’s co-dependency, enmeshment or just motherhood? \u00a0The only upside, as many of you have experienced, is that there is nothing like my kids pain to get me praying. \u00a0Praying all day long. \u00a0I can’t NOT think about them. \u00a0And there’s nothing like prayer to get my mind and heart clinging to truth, the truth I most need in that moment my heart is aching:<\/p>\n
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance<\/strong>. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete<\/strong>, not lacking anything.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n James 1:2-4 (emphasis mine)<\/span><\/p>\n The first time I intentionally let my daughter suffer was when she was learning to sleep through the night by herself, without any comfort from mom or dad. \u00a0That was at about 4 months. \u00a0And it was agony. \u00a0Listening to her cries and not going to her, was the hardest thing. \u00a0The only reason we did it was because we knew she needed to be able to sleep through the night. \u00a0Not so much for our sake, though we needed it too, but for her own. \u00a0Her body needed a good nights sleep. \u00a0So we endured the heart wrenching week of crying. \u00a0And, eventually, she learned to sleep through the night all by herself.<\/p>\n For the past 16 years, I’ve been learning that same lesson over and over. \u00a0Sometimes the suffering is necessary. \u00a0Even Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered”<\/span> (Hebrews 5:8). \u00a0It is a bit easier now that I’ve made peace with the fact that God is not going to protect them from all the hurts that come their way and He’s not going to make every experience wonderful and fun. \u00a0It’s going to be a mixed bag … some good, some fulfillment, right along side the hurts, disappointments, failures, betrayals and losses. \u00a0Now, instead of trying to pray away my kids pain, I ask God to allow, to select, the trials that He can best use to draw them to Himself, to teach them His ways, to open their eyes to what is good and true, to\u00a0what is wrong and false. \u00a0Instead of removal of pain, I pray they would know the Holy Spirit’s comfort and counsel. \u00a0OK, that’s not always true. \u00a0Sometimes my first response is to rescue: \u00a0to buy them something, to feed them something yummy or to let them have screen time, when normally I would not.<\/p>\n There was one time when I was praying for one of my kids and I heard the Lord say, “I feel the same.” \u00a0This got me thinking about how their hurts feel to their Heavenly Father. \u00a0Their Abba Father. \u00a0Their Perfect Father. \u00a0Is it possible He goes through some holy version of what I go through? \u00a0The psalmist says:<\/p>\n The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n Psalm 34:18<\/span><\/p>\n And then there’s this:<\/p>\n \u2026 the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.<\/span><\/p>\n Romans 8:26<\/span><\/p>\n When I read about the Holy Spirit’s groaning prayers I thought, ya, that’s how it feels to be my kids mom. \u00a0Knowing He’s groaning for them, enables my prayers to come out with so much more hope – so much more confidence that my\u00a0“labor in the Lord is not in vain<\/span>” (ICor 15:58). \u00a0I can trust and hope that He is in it with them, for them. \u00a0And that is when I realize that when I pray it’s not me inviting God in. \u00a0It’s God, inviting me in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It kills me to see my kids in pain. \u00a0I hate when they suffer with colds and flues, cuts and bruises. \u00a0And it pierces my heart when their hopes and dreams go unfulfilled. \u00a0 Sometimes, I wonder if I feel their pain more intensely then they do. \u00a0And then I wonder if that’s co-dependency, enmeshment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}