I became the screaming banshee again this morning and sometimes I just feel like I am too old for teenage motherhood. All these years I thought that being a mom in my fifties and sixties was so much better than when I was a mom in my twenties and thirties and early forties! I am so much calmer as an older mom and I look at life with a different perspective. For instance I hardly ever raise my voice to my son but seemed to argue and yell often at my daughters when they were growing up…until now! This week has been a turning point in my life; my son actually acts like a teenager! I remember one of my male friends giving me some advice about raising a boy and how it is different from raising girls when I had asked for his advice. He said that when boys hit the teenage years their brains go to mush and you just have to keep prodding them to get things done. I thought he was teasing but this week is proof that he wasn’t!!!!! So as usual I turn to the Bible to help me solve my difficulties, not sure if it is me or my son that needs an attitude adjustment!
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Galatians 5:13-26, (New International Version or NIV).
I have to begin with this passage because my yelling at my son for doing a sloppy and lazy job on his assignment for school really is walking in the flesh and not by the Spirit. I really have some work to do here on my attitude. On the other hand my son is also walking in the flesh and not the Spirit when he does a lazy job on his homework and other chores this week that he was supposed to do so he also needs an attitude adjustment. However, I am the adult here so I will take the blame on not being patient and kind in my approach to him. I know in my heart of hearts that he is a good son but I really don’t want him to grow up to be lazy and irresponsible. In my experience nice people are sometimes also irresponsible and I don’t want that to be how my son approaches life. There must be more to study here.
A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all. The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life. In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls, but those who would preserve their life stay far from them. Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:1-6, (NIV).
My Mom always would tell us children as we were growing up and in our teen years that our Dad might not have given us much more than a roof over our heads and food to eat but he gave us a good name, an honest name, and we were to keep our name out of the mud! What she meant is right here in the first sentence of Proverbs. I have worked hard to remove the disgrace from our last name after the divorce that we went through because I wanted people who knew our name to think well of my son and of me in the small town where we lived. It took a lot of time and constant and consistent living for God to show that I was a woman worthy of a good name and so was my young son. I want him to keep that good name out of the mud. The truth is so simple, we treat others the way that we want to be treated and I failed in doing this with my son this morning. I also am the only parent that is teaching him about God and I have been the one who has carried the task of the last sentence in this passage: Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. If I am honest there is a part of me that worries that I will fail in raising my son, it is a heavy responsibility shared by none other than myself. And yet I know that God is with us.
Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him—his name is the Lord. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. Psalm 68:4-6, (NIV).
Truth sure is spoken here. For one thing I am not alone because God is with me every minute of every single day of my life and helps me in so many ways I can hardly count them all. For another, singing is good for my soul and I can’t sing and be angry at the same time. Maybe next time I feel frustration in my son I should break out in song to derail the hostile feelings of frustration! God obviously has placed my orphaned son into my family for a reason and perhaps, just perhaps, it is so that I am not alone in my vulnerable old age. While I am not technically a widow I have been abandoned and left alone and had it not been for my son I probably would have died from a broken heart long ago. So there is another act of kindness bestowed to me by God. I can sing and rejoice knowing that God is in the midst of my training a teenage boy in the way that he should go!
The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4:7-11, (NIV).
Yes, this is good advice for a weary Mom of a teenage boy. I will continue to love deeply and be the best Mom I know how to be, after all motherhood seems to be my gift to serve others. God is working on my heart just as God is working on my son’s heart! I will guard my words and teach my son to be a little less lazy and all so that God can be praised. Thank you Lord, for this reminder in life. Boys brains will eventually grow out of teenage mush stage and into manhood stable and hard-working and full of integrity stage! And then he will leave home and probably, hopefully, marry and I will have done my job and God will find other work for me to do and all will be well. Time for me to go and apologize.
Until next time…Katherine
Katherine Speaks 