June 27th, 2022
Written by Tabitha White
When you become a parent, there are certain things you know you are going to teach your littles. You expect to help them learn to walk and to ride a bike. You know you’ll teach them to sing their ABCs, and you try your best to get them ready for their first day of Kindergarten.
In the south, you teach them to say “yes ma’am” and “no sir” to anyone older than them. You teach that “please” and “thank you” should always remain staples in their vocabulary!
As Christ-followers, we teach our children about Jesus and His unimaginable love for us! By our example, we show the importance of spending time in God’s Word. We teach them to share God’s love, even on the days that it gets hard….because it will get hard! Which leads me to the lesson that I never thought about teaching and that God taught me through my middle child.
Our family has been praying together at night for as long as I can remember. Each night, we specifically name friends and family we think we should pray for. One night, there may be a list a mile long, including everyone we know…even Malachi, our dog. Other nights, it’s a short list of family members that aren’t feeling well or friends that have been on their minds! Family prayer is not an earth-shattering idea, but we strongly believe it’s a world-changing thing for our kids to do! Every night, they bring their family and friends to Jesus and ask that He hold them in His hands like only He can do.
They’ve seen amazing answers to prayer (ahem, Cayden…), but they’ve also had prayers that, in their minds, didn’t seem to be answered when people passed away. And that is hard! They’ve questioned why those prayers weren’t answered in the way we all wanted, and Jason and I have wrestled with those questions right along with them!
I’ll never forget the day I found Camryn laying in the crib with one year old Cayden. After I stopped laughing, I asked her what she was doing. Her simple answer almost brought me to tears. She said, “Mommy, I couldn’t lift him out, so I just crawled in here with him.” It was so sweet and honest. She knew there was no chance of her lifting up her enormous brother, but she knew that he needed her. Her only solution was to climb in with him.
Well, that same week, one of our prayers was not answered how we had hoped. As we talked to the girls about the situation, Camryn said that she wanted to fix it for her friend. Unfortunately, there was no way Camryn could make this situation better for her sweet friend. But in that moment, her words from earlier in the week came back to me…
I held her in my arms as she cried and said, “Honey, you can’t pull her out of this [grief], so you are just going to climb in there with her!” I explained how we are there for our friends as they grieve. We give our love and support in any way that we can. We give hugs, smiles, and love! We climb into their sadness because there’s no way we are strong enough to pull them out. As Paul wrote in Galatians 6:2, “share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
That's a lesson that I never thought about teaching, but as I was teaching the girls, He was teaching me!
Our Savior is beyond strong enough to pull us out of our sin and grime, and He does when we ask. He’s divine. Omnipotent. He’s perfect and holy…and yet, He chooses to climb down into our mess to comfort us and rescue us!
He promises to be with us every step of our life…
in our deepest grief, when we feel all alone;
at that doctor’s visit, when we fear the doctor’s diagnosis;
on the other end of the phone call that rocks us to our core.
He’s there!
He left His throne in Heaven to climb into our world and hold us because He loves us more than we can ever imagine!
No, my friends, you can’t fix your friend’s pain, but by climbing into their grief with them, you are pointing them to the only One that truly heals the hurt! Psalm 121:2 reminds us, “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
So, climb into that grief! Share the tears, give the hugs, love fiercely like Jesus, and don’t ever discount the lessons that God may teach you through the innocence of a sweet little child!
When you become a parent, there are certain things you know you are going to teach your littles. You expect to help them learn to walk and to ride a bike. You know you’ll teach them to sing their ABCs, and you try your best to get them ready for their first day of Kindergarten.
In the south, you teach them to say “yes ma’am” and “no sir” to anyone older than them. You teach that “please” and “thank you” should always remain staples in their vocabulary!
As Christ-followers, we teach our children about Jesus and His unimaginable love for us! By our example, we show the importance of spending time in God’s Word. We teach them to share God’s love, even on the days that it gets hard….because it will get hard! Which leads me to the lesson that I never thought about teaching and that God taught me through my middle child.
Our family has been praying together at night for as long as I can remember. Each night, we specifically name friends and family we think we should pray for. One night, there may be a list a mile long, including everyone we know…even Malachi, our dog. Other nights, it’s a short list of family members that aren’t feeling well or friends that have been on their minds! Family prayer is not an earth-shattering idea, but we strongly believe it’s a world-changing thing for our kids to do! Every night, they bring their family and friends to Jesus and ask that He hold them in His hands like only He can do.
They’ve seen amazing answers to prayer (ahem, Cayden…), but they’ve also had prayers that, in their minds, didn’t seem to be answered when people passed away. And that is hard! They’ve questioned why those prayers weren’t answered in the way we all wanted, and Jason and I have wrestled with those questions right along with them!
I’ll never forget the day I found Camryn laying in the crib with one year old Cayden. After I stopped laughing, I asked her what she was doing. Her simple answer almost brought me to tears. She said, “Mommy, I couldn’t lift him out, so I just crawled in here with him.” It was so sweet and honest. She knew there was no chance of her lifting up her enormous brother, but she knew that he needed her. Her only solution was to climb in with him.
Well, that same week, one of our prayers was not answered how we had hoped. As we talked to the girls about the situation, Camryn said that she wanted to fix it for her friend. Unfortunately, there was no way Camryn could make this situation better for her sweet friend. But in that moment, her words from earlier in the week came back to me…
I held her in my arms as she cried and said, “Honey, you can’t pull her out of this [grief], so you are just going to climb in there with her!” I explained how we are there for our friends as they grieve. We give our love and support in any way that we can. We give hugs, smiles, and love! We climb into their sadness because there’s no way we are strong enough to pull them out. As Paul wrote in Galatians 6:2, “share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
That's a lesson that I never thought about teaching, but as I was teaching the girls, He was teaching me!
Our Savior is beyond strong enough to pull us out of our sin and grime, and He does when we ask. He’s divine. Omnipotent. He’s perfect and holy…and yet, He chooses to climb down into our mess to comfort us and rescue us!
He promises to be with us every step of our life…
in our deepest grief, when we feel all alone;
at that doctor’s visit, when we fear the doctor’s diagnosis;
on the other end of the phone call that rocks us to our core.
He’s there!
He left His throne in Heaven to climb into our world and hold us because He loves us more than we can ever imagine!
No, my friends, you can’t fix your friend’s pain, but by climbing into their grief with them, you are pointing them to the only One that truly heals the hurt! Psalm 121:2 reminds us, “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
So, climb into that grief! Share the tears, give the hugs, love fiercely like Jesus, and don’t ever discount the lessons that God may teach you through the innocence of a sweet little child!
1 Comment
Wonderful message. Thank you.