M.I.T.

Are you a parent with children still at home? Bless you! Are you hanging in there? Each day is a challenge isn't it? Some days you want to hug 'em to death and other days you want to throttle them. Well, maybe you don't, but I do. If someone had told me exactly how hard parenting would be I am not sure I would have jumped in with both feet. But despite how difficult it can be sometimes, I would never trade it!

As I look around our community and the nation at large, I see so many broken homes. So many struggling parents. So many hurting kids. So many out of control kids! The level of disrespect and unkindness in kids is mind blowing. I often make the mistake of thinking that kids inside the church should be better. Truth is they are not.

A while back at one of the youth group meetings, Greg had planned for the teens to do some clean up outdoors after an event. Nothing too difficult, clean up some trash, put back some equipment. He told them this was their opportunity to "serve". The concept of serving, especially in the context of church, is huge. And one I thought was well understood. Jesus came to serve. The bible is filled with images of Jesus serving. We hear it over and over in church and Sunday School. This one is a no-brainer right? Well, let me finish the story. Josh got up from his seat and began to move the grill back to the garage. Kaleb got up and began to pick up trash. The rest of the kids sat there. Greg started to get on their case, prodding them to get up and serve! One of the teens chimed back that he wasn't anyone's slave. Gulp!! To them serving=slavery.

I don't tell this story to brag on my kids (though I was so proud of them!) but rather to show how far off base things have gotten. These were the regulars, at church and youth group. Most of them from families that have attended church for years. If they don't get it, how can we expect the world to get it?

At my new job I go into a lot of homes and I am continually saddened by what I see. Homes with 2 year olds and no toys in sight (but a 52" flat screen on the wall). Homes where the mom is threatening to drop her naughty child off at the Salvation Army like a sack of unwanted clothes. Homes where the kids are out of control yet the parents offer no discipline. Brokenness. Lack of love. Lack of knowledge. Lack of parents taking the responsibility of parenting seriously.

Whether in the church or out, it is clear to me the problem is not a little one anymore. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Training our children is the primary job we have as parents. Training is a non-stop job, from sun up to sun down, from birth to ..... job. That is the part they didn't tell you before you had kids. Some training happens naturally as our children observe us going to church, tithing, offering a kind word to another (and on the flip side, observing us being unkind, untrustworthy or unfaithful). But most of the training does not come naturally, we have to to be intentional.

Let's say that this morning I woke up and decided it was a good day to run the Boston Marathon. I showered, put on some jeans and a t-shirt, slid into my Birkenstocks and made my way to the starting line. You would call me a FOOL. Improper dress would be the least of my offenses. You can't run a marathon without training. And running to the mailbox somehow wouldn't cut it. The idea of running the Boston Marathon seems quite funny to me and though it is quite improbable it is not impossible. I could set a goal and work towards it everyday. I could build up from 1 mile to 5 to 26.2. With the right training and equipment I could one day be a runner in a marathon.

Parenting is not much different. We need to have a goal. We need to be intentional. We have to work at it every single day. And at the end of each day when we have done all these things, we need to be on our knees praying for our children. Praying that God will watch over them, that He will cover our mistakes and short comings because we will surely come up short.

We refer to our boys as M.I.T.-Men In Training. The goal: to have 2 boys that leave our home as men equipped for life, employment and marriage. Each day is a new opportunity for training. The school of parenting is like the school of life, the diploma won't come until we are called heavenward. There will be pop quizzes, some we will ace and some we will flunk BIG time. But we can not quit. We are by no means experts but God has impressed upon Greg and I that He desires us to share our journey, our successes and failures. So, as I have time and stories, I will post about this job of parenting. Will you be sitting at the desk that has your name on it???