Day 18

Scripture focus: My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Proverbs 7:1 NIV

Our family has long believed in the concept of co-parenting. One of our friends who joined the team that co-parented Scott was Tom. Tom has a saying, “I find that parenting our children is less about what they learn from us, and more about what we learn from them.” Of course, Tom and the rest of us only came to this marvelous insight after our kids left for college and we resumed the luxury of sleeping through the night.

Long before our children taught us differently, Pete and I thought that one of our responsibilities as parents was to teach our children how to behave. Concepts like: good manners, talking to folks and maintaining eye contact, not poking their siblings’ eyes out with pointy sticks – stuff like that – all seemed very important. And they were! Families who fail to pay attention to modeling, guiding and instructing kids in the fine art of getting along with others often end up with hooligans (or kids who act like they are the parents of their parents) for children.

Parents have a responsibility to their children. But parents are not responsible for the outcome.

Although I would love for my children to learn all of life’s lessons via text message or video – without having to get personally involved in the messiness of life, I know this is not meant to be. Of course, it would be nice if children behaved – even the adult ones.

But the truth is, what I truly value (on days when I am feeling mature and faith-filled) is not so much behaving as believing. I appreciate Scott’s story on many levels, but mostly I appreciate how he engaged his faith in the process and faced his own humanity head on. Would it have been better for him to have taken this class and learned how to seek wisdom through scripture reading and new forms of prayer BEFORE he made his choice with regards to hanging out with a very cute girl who broke his heart? A mother’s heart says yes.

More on why I am not sure that a mother’s heart is the best place to look for answers in tomorrow’s devotional.
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4 comments:

chimp said...

Adultry and betrayal boiled down to a choice to hang out with a very cute girl that broke his heart?

Interesting spin on the story.

July 18, 2010 at 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...

Great comment. Let me clarify. The first choice - to hang out with a very cute girl - was the first step, down a series of steps that ultimately led to adultery and betrayal. So my point is this - sometimes that first little step is a doozy. it was not intended as a summary account of offensiveness - that is Scott's job to name, not mine. To name the offensiveness for someone else would seem to me arrogant. For example, adultary and betrayal may indeed be the central issue. Or it may be that the essential issue is idoltary - who are we to know? Sometimes we easily see the sins of ourselves in another, and rush to judgment. Sometimes the sin is much deeper and more profound than our own perspectives allow us to go. And as a parent, to presume to name the offense would be confusing responsible FOR versus responsible TO - which was the point of this devotional. All that said, from the story he told, the first step is pretty easy to identify. t

July 18, 2010 at 1:52 PM
Chimp said...

Yes I was trying to at least paraphrase from previous posts but never the less I own my feeling of over simplification and thank you for your reply. I felt "cute girl" was glib and broke his heart was assigning blame implying it was her fault.

Clearly enough mess to go around but feel it was a valuable topic that needs to be discussed more but hopefully theoretically. Might defuse the self lies (fantasy)of those thinking about looking for love in all the wrong places. My suggestion is to start at home as it might be right under your nose. It made me think and had discussions with others about this topic and how it relates to our personal lives. So the post might be about SWM but my hope is that others take a look at their thoughts and actions and by doing so, do no harm or if they have get busy getting honest.

Chimp

July 18, 2010 at 9:46 PM
Scotty said...

Further in mom's defense here- she knows all the details of the extremely messy ending of this relationship, and so comments might unintentionally come out which do assess some blame (and rightfully so, this girl did plenty of things which should end up on some kind of "inventory" some day). In my telling of the story though, I wanted to make sure to keep the focus on what I had done wrong, and how I have tried to take responsibility for those things, rather than giving unnecessary details which would just implicate the other person and make it easier to focus on her...

July 19, 2010 at 3:51 PM

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