Your Child: The Masterpiece

I had my first baby when I was just nineteen years old. I wish she had come with an instruction manual, but she didn’t, so she and I grew up together. Lucky for her though, one of my summer jobs had included nannying for a toddler. 

I still remember getting ready that Thursday morning in October.  As I pulled my shirt over my head, I looked in the mirror, rubbed my pregnant belly and said “and tomorrow, I will have to get you ready as well.” 

By 6:30 that morning I was at the hospital with machines hooked up even though I wasn’t in labor. My wonderful daughter had turned in utero a month before her due date and since it was too much of a risk to attempt labor and delivery, a C-section was planned.

Around 7am the nurses came into my room to have me sign more documents, one of which made me start crying. If only my mom had been there to tell me it was going to be okay, that it was just formatilites.  I had to initial and sign that I understood death was a possibility. 

Waiting for surgery to start was the longest few hours I had ever had, but finally it was time. They wheeled my bed down the hallway into the operating room and proceeded to numb me from the chest down. They put up a drape that would allow me to still see those assisting in the delivery. 

The doctor, a friend of my sister-in-law’s, started making small talk about my brother-in-law and his music. We even talked about having cheeseburgers when surgery was over. As my husband and the doctor were chit chatting away, I remember hearing the doctor suddenly say, in a stern voice, “We are losing her!”

My blood pressure was dropping. They tilted the operating table ever so slightly and just that quickly the emergency was evaded and they handed me a tiny 6lb 8oz little girl. 

For the next twenty-six months it was just the three of us. My husband did all he could to help me but I floundered as a new mom and with no family or friends in our new town. 

My husband and I were married for only a couple of months when it became apparent that living in our home state wasn’t an option because of the economy. We decided to make our new home in a state six hundred miles away. We had a sister and brother-in-law who lived close by but they too were busy raising three children and traveling for music. I did the best I could or knew how to, and we had two more girls, twenty-two months apart. 

Now on the other side of raising children, I enjoy being a Nana, but remember that instruction book? They still haven’t made one for new moms. And even if they did, with all that is going on in the world, I think the updated version would be out-of-date before it was released. 

Here are a few parenting tips  I believe will stand the test of time.  The first comes from Proverbs 22. 

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)

Confession time. When I was a young mom I seriously thought all I had to do was take my children to church. That is a great start, but if you live differently the other one hundred and sixty-six hours of the week, what do you think will become of their lives? 

I think the verse from Proverbs should read; “Hey parents, how you live your life, in private and public is an example to your children.  Ask yourself, ‘Will the way I am living, acting and being serve as an example that will turn my children to God or to the world?’” 

Much of parenting is actually caught and not taught. If that wasn’t so then why do we say: 

Don’t do what I do, but what I say. Or your actions are speaking so loudly I can’t hear  your words. 

Perhaps this is why God had the verse in Ephesians 6 written. 

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4 (NIV) 

Looking back, I see much I wish I’d done differently in raising my three girls.

First, I would be present.

In order to be present for them, I would have needed to be at peace with myself. As a young teen mom, I brought into the marriage a very low self-esteem. I did not grow up reading or understanding the Bible.  When I was introduced to the church, I felt all eyes were on me not as a sister-in-Christ, but an outsider whom they were waiting to throw out.  

Now, I truly see the importance of a Godly home. Not a home that goes to church when the doors are open, but one that actually lives out its God-given purpose as a Christ follower.  Matthew 22 records Jesus’ Words:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. Matthew 22: 37-38 (NIV)

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until my children were teenagers that I started to truly understand what it meant to love the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind and to find the inner peace that had been missing. 

One of my life verses is found in Ephesians 2. 

 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

Before Leonardo Da Vinci died in 1519 he completed masterpieces like the Mona Lisa, and The Last Supper. In 2017 his painting of Jesus Christ called “Salvator Mundi” or the Savior of the world sold for $450.3 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold.

Just as DaVinci created a masterpiece on a piece of canvas, God created you and me (and our children) to be masterpieces as well. 

As the parent, are you adding strokes to the canvas? Are you creating in your children through your actions, attitude, and belief system about them, paintings that will give them a glimpse of the masterpieces God created them to be? 

Sadly, I have watched parents call their children names. I have witnessed kids being yanked up out of the seat because the parent was embarrassed by something the child did. I have also heard the one-sided yelling storm of a parent whose child, not old enough to know better, getting bearated for doing something that according to the parent they should have known better than to do. 

Every time I witness this behavior, I am reminded of my not-so-proud parenting moments. The sad part is that, like I said, so much of parenting is caught not taught, and as much as I would love to report that my daughters “caught” only my great parenting skills, that is not the case. 

As we grow up we swear we will never do this or that. This statement usually is said when you as the child don’t like the punishment that was given. The challenge that most children don’t know and unfortunately most parents fail to understand as well is that without being taught something different, your “go to” behavior is what you learned or worse yet how you saw scenarios play out. 

I challenge you today to look at your parenting style and ask God to show you what needs to change so that you are adding precious color to the masterpiece God is creating in His image. (Genesis 1:27)