It's all very cute and sweet except when we're in a hurry to get to the store and back before my youngest's last nap and dinner time. After multiple requests for him to get his shoes on, I exasperatedly made a comment that he'd "better hurry up or we would leave without him." It was a threat so idle and taken so lightly that my son actually filmed it and more short videos before we finally got out of our house.
In addition to taking an astounding number of videos and pictures in marathons that would leave an adult professional photographer impressed, my son likes to endlessly admire his own work . . . sometimes by playing the same 20 second video repeatedly. Guess which 20 second video he chose to play the most?
Now, I know it wasn't my best parenting moment, but it was far from my worst. Even my naturally anxious son was not fazed by my threat! Still, by the twentieth time I heard myself make that threat I was feeling tremendously guilty and praying for forgiveness. I even started worrying that I had given my child some kind of abandonment complex or would by him listening to the same threat over and over. I started worrying about what I would have done if Jesus had decided to return to visit me just as I was saying those words. Would he have been repulsed? Would he have refused to take me to heaven to meet his father? What would I have done?
But then I realized my son was giggling as he watched the video. "You're funny, mama! You wouldn't leave me, ever!" My son got the joke. Surely God and Jesus did, too. The only one who was getting a complex was me and I was giving it to myself.
I realized then that taking a little mistake in the moment, making a record of it in my mind and then playing it over and over and over again is what I've done to myself my whole life. While others (including God) see me as a whole with both good and bad, I have often constructed my self worth based on a collection of twenty second clips of my mistakes that I whisper to myself over and over again and blow out of proportion. I torment myself by only holding on to the bad moments and not balancing them with the good. For a split second, I said the wrong thing, but for most of my son's life I had done the right thing. My actions outweighed my words. Lord, help me remember this lesson in the future!
It's so easy to concentrate on the wrong we have done when we know we have done it. Guilt is a part of being a mother, I believe, and I can only imagine how Mary must have felt. How difficult for her, to watch the trials of her Son, who was also His. We can only do the best we can; we are only human, after all. I think part of parenthood is learning that we are worthy of forgiveness. Just as you would never dream of dwelling a small mistake made by your child, God is always there and ready with His forgiveness. It's so hard to forgive ourselves when we don't think we are worthy of it, but open your heart and let God show you that you are always worthy of His forgiveness. Easier said than done, I know! It's a daily battle for me. <3
ReplyDeleteGlad to know I'm not alone!
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