Lessons

I had cause recently to think about an exchange I had with my mom when I was 16. We were in the car on the way to Missoula, chatting back and forth. She's one of my favorite people and was one of my closest friends at the time, so we had a fairly open and easy going relationship.

Anyway, she made a funny, teasing remark to me, and I responded, in a playful tone, "Shut up." There was absolutely no disrespect intended. It was said in jest the way I would have said it to one of my friends if they were teasing me, the way many teenagers do. I am confident that if anyone had overheard it, they would've known undoubtedly that I was just teasing. My mom smiled, but cocked her head ever-so-slightly and asked, "Did you just tell your mother to shut up?" It wasn't said as a stern rebuke, because she knew I was being playful. But the point was made. I'd gotten too casual with my tone and even the words I used. My language had gotten sloppy. If I spoke that way to my own mother, what did it indicate about the way I was probably talking to everyone else?

Not only do we understand our own parents better as we become parents ourselves (well, most of us--some people are just stubbornly clueless well into parenthood, and some people's parents fall outside the bell curve of understandability), but I think most people understand the Gospel better as well.

A lot of times, the Lord either allows or sends little trials to give us that opportunity to change directions. Not big things, but just little day to day challenges that serve as those gentle little rebukes to remind us, "Hey, you need to shore things up here a little bit" or "You've gotten a little sloppy in this area. Could you work on that?" I'm better at heeding my mom's subtle (or not so subtle) hints than I am at heeding the Lord's.

I will give my children three opportunities to heed "nice Mommy". Up to three times I will say, "Will you please (insert appropriate task here)", or give them a gentle nudge in the right direction. But sometimes they decide to be stubborn or willful, so I have to bring out "mean Mommy"--the parent who doles out spankings and bedroom timeouts and nose-in-the-corner-while-you-count-to-20 punishments. In the midst of challenging trials that push me to shore up my weaknesses, I often will look back and realize that there were a lot of little nudges here and there where the Lord was trying to push me in that direction, trying very gently to get me to address those weaknesses in myself. But I wasn't paying attention. I'd rather keep playing robots and race cars, as it were. So there I find myself, sitting with my nose in the corner, my toys taken away and nothing to do but think about what I've done or failed to do. My mom doesn't really make a habit of telling me what to do any more (actually, she never really did--I never took well to be bossed:) ), so I'm going to resolve from now on to try to pay closer attention to my Father's little hints. Just as my children's lives would be much easier and more pleasant if they would just listen to me the first time, I'm sure my life will be much blessed by trying harder to just do what I'm supposed to do the first time!