Love

Learning this new way of relating in love is challenging.

In the past, I resorted often to irritation, frustration, anger, intimidation, withdrawal...all tools I used to send messages to those around me (i.e. my kids) that what they were doing was not acceptable in my book and that the behavior needed to change in order for me to be ok.

I was powerless, or at least acting like I was.

Then I was introduced to books like Parenting with Love and Logic and Loving Our Kids on Purpose and, most recently, Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values.  I became increasingly aware that these tools, while seemingly effective at getting what I wanted done, were creating distance, pain, and brokenness in the relationships most important to me.

I didn't want to do that anymore.

So I've gone on a journey of learning to love my kids, of allowing God to parent my heart and root out those self-focused tools and replace them with His love.

I'm far from perfect, and some days it's so hard to put down the old tools and pick up the new ones because learning to do things a new way is time-consuming and "inefficient" (i.e. my agenda is not happening in the time-frame I think is important) and requires me to trust God like never before.

However, I never want to go back to the old way of doing things.  Things are messy on this journey: lists of all sorts have gone out the window as God knows they keep me from fully embracing this season of learning to love selflessly, learning to rightly relate to Him and my family.

I'm grateful that He's opened my eyes to the fruit of the old tools so that I can stop doing those things and embrace love instead.