On Sundays…from our children’s toddler days, we need to choose our battles wisely by figuring out the differences between a child’s personal tastes or opinions (legitimate – they’re not our clones!) and their foolish or dangerous behavior (unacceptable). If we waste energy fighting over non-essential issues, we’ll lack the energy and authority we need for the inevitable battles of the teen years over essential issues.
On Mondays…on long vacation car trips, it’s easy to forget hugs. But even though we are spending a lot of time as a family, the car offers too little opportunity for loving touch and direct eye contact. So, we need to remember to fill up our kids’ emotional fuel tanks during driving breaks.
On Tuesdays…it’s important to encourage children to read lots of books that are easy for them instead of constantly pushing them to read harder and harder material. Reading lots of easy books helps children become fluent readers.
On Wednesdays…when children age and move into the workplace as young adults, they have to get along with people of all ages. Unfortunately, schools segregate them by age, which hinders that kind of social development. So, we need to look for social experiences for them that involve people of varying ages, such as 4-H Club or volunteer work. Friendly relatives can also provide relationships that broaden children’s social experience.
On Thursdays…since life is full of spills, don’t be surprised, be prepared. Unless children are deliberately being destructive or goofing off, spills should be treated as a normal part of life, without scolding or punishment. Show children where rags are kept and demonstrate the clean-up process. Then, next time they spill, be matter of fact and remind them what to do.
On Fridays…summer is a great time to encourage children to develop their artistic talents for practical purposes. They can make birthday or holiday gifts for friends and relatives and toys for younger brothers and sisters.
On Saturdays…since parenting mistakes are inevitable, we can let our failures teach us that, just like our children, we need to be loved with no strings attached. So, look for a spiritual community and trustworthy friends who love you and support your parenting efforts, just as you, in turn, support them.
When our son Matt was little, he had a lot of ear infections. Finally, one day in January, just after his fourth birthday, the pediatrician said that unless we could curb the infections, Matt’s hearing would be affected. He gave me the name of an Ear Nose Throat specialist and said, “He’ll probably want to put tubes in his ears.”
Going to the specialist
I took Matt to the ENT, who examined him and said, “He does not need tubes. He needs a tonsillectomy. His tonsils are constantly swollen, and they are blocking his Eustachian tubes.” So we scheduled the surgery.
I’d had a tonsillectomy myself when I was six, so I knew Matt would be in a lot of pain. He really wanted cowboy boots, so we went out and bought him a pair to give him a happy distraction after his surgery.
The post-surgery healing process
But then came the tonsillectomy. A whole closet full of cowboy boots could not have distracted our little boy from the pain he felt. For two weeks I sat rocking Matt in the rocking chair, getting up, it felt like, only to go to the bathroom and feed the rest of the family.
At last the pain ended. Matt wore his new cowboy boots everywhere except in his bed and his bath. The ear infections vanished. He suffered only one more infection, a few years later, and that was all. The tonsillectomy cured him.
Taking our hurts and hang-ups to The Specialist
To me, Matt’s experience gives a picture of God’s healing, not only His physical healing, but His emotional and spiritual healing, too.
Matt kept getting sick in the same way, over and over, so finally we took him to a specialist. Matt’s ears hurt, so logically we expected the specialist to operate on his ears. Even the pediatrician thought the specialist would do that. But instead, the specialist said, “The part needing an operation is his throat.”
God is our specialist above all specialists. He created us.
He knows how we are made far better than any human doctor. So, when we come to Him with our pain, our disability, our out-of-control condition, it is absurdly foolish to assume that we know more than He does and insist that He do the healing our way.
Putting on the helmet of salvation means thinking the way Jesus thought when he walked the earth. He knew His Father understood the whole situation, so he looked to the Father for where to begin any healing process.
For example, because crowds blocked the door of the house where Jesus was teaching, four men hoisted their paralyzed friend onto the roof, dug a hole in it, and lowered the man through the hole. But instead of physically healing the paralyzed man, Jesus first told him in front of everyone that his sins were forgiven.
We don’t know exactly why Jesus forgave the man before healing him.
Maybe the man had done something sinful or foolish that caused his paralysis, and Jesus realized that his emotional burden of guilt and shame would interfere with his physical healing. Maybe the man lived under a cloud of public shame and needed public affirmation. Or maybe Jesus simply needed to make it clear to his religious opponents who he was: the prophesied Son of Man with – like God – the right and the power to forgive sins as well as to heal physically.
In any case, because Jesus relied on the Father through the Holy Spirit, he began the man’s healing by first declaring that his sins were forgiven. In the same way, we need to trust our Heavenly Father to begin healing our bodies and souls the way He thinks our healing should begin.
Trust through the pain of the healing process
Matt’s healing required an operation. After the operation, he experienced more pain than he had ever experienced with any previous ear infection. Besides that, he was in pain for what seemed like a long time to him. But going through that greater pain cured his ear infections and saved his hearing.
When we come to God for healing, we want instant pain relief. But profound healing often involves pain. We need to trust God through the process.
“When Healing Hurts” is part of a collection of stories describing and explaining the use of the spiritual weapons that the apostle Paul listed in Ephesians 6:10-20. This story describes using the helmet of salvation to think with a renewed mind. To read the introductory story, enter its title “Family Conflict, Family Struggles” into the Search Bar. To find other stories in the series enter “reflections on spiritual warfare” into the Search Bar. (photo: 4-year-old Matt in his cowboy boots)
On Sundays…giving our kids a good morning hug and a good night hug are the best ways to start and end each day
On Mondays…since we want our children to learn how to think clearly, we need to be consistent in turning off screens, reading to our kids, and talking about what we read. Reading trains the mind to analyze and reason. It stimulates the imagination and develops a long attention span. The fast-moving images on videos, however, encourage a short attention span and train the mind to respond emotionally instead of logically.
On Tuesdays…it’s sad, but true that the physical aspect of cleaning up a mess is less important than our attitude about it. Although it may take a grumpy parent only half an hour to remove crayon damage to their sofa, it might take a year or a lifetime to remove the emotional damage done by the words that came out of Mom or Dad’s mouth while they were cleaning up the mess.
On Wednesdays…when we train our children not to leave their messes for someone else to clean up at home, it is simple to teach them that the same rule applies to public places.
On Thursdays… children appreciate their school science lessons more when they have plenty of experiences to be outside enjoying the natural world. Summertime gives us extra opportunities for impromptu nature walks where we can encourage kids to collect interesting rocks and bugs or use binoculars for bird watching and magnifying glasses to see plants and insects up close.
On Fridays…sitting too long in the car makes the family cranky, so it’s important on long car trips to take regular breaks for stretching everyone’s muscles and running off kids’ energy. Bringing along a ball or frisbee makes it easy to stop and play catch, but your own on-the-spot inventions can work well, too. (“See how fast you can run to the fence and tag it. Then run back and I’ll give you a rock to throw in this puddle.”)
On Saturdays… it makes a huge difference to everyone in the family when we savor and appreciate what we have at the moment, instead of focusing on next week when the washer will be fixed or next year when our child is past the Terrible Two’s. Choosing contentment today takes effort, but we discourage ourselves when we feed discontentment.
On Sundays…from our children’s toddler days, we need to choose our battles wisely by figuring out the differences between a child’s personal tastes or opinions (legitimate – they’re not our clones!) and their foolish or dangerous behavior (unacceptable). If we waste energy fighting over non-essential issues, we’ll lack the energy and authority we need for the inevitable battles of the teen years over essential issues.
On Mondays…on long vacation car trips, it’s easy to forget hugs. But even though we are spending a lot of time as a family, the car offers too little opportunity for loving touch and direct eye contact. So, we need to remember to fill up our kids’ emotional fuel tanks during driving breaks.
On Tuesdays…it’s important to encourage children to read lots of books that are easy for them instead of constantly pushing them to read harder and harder material. Reading lots of easy books helps children become fluent readers.
On Wednesdays…when children age and move into the workplace as young adults, they have to get along with people of all ages. Unfortunately, schools segregate them by age, which hinders that kind of social development. So, we need to look for social experiences for them that involve people of varying ages, such as 4-H Club or volunteer work. Friendly relatives can also provide relationships that broaden children’s social experience.
On Thursdays…since life is full of spills, don’t be surprised, be prepared. Unless children are deliberately being destructive or goofing off, spills should be treated as a normal part of life, without scolding or punishment. Show children where rags are kept and demonstrate the clean-up process. Then, next time they spill, be matter of fact and remind them what to do.
On Fridays…summer is a great time to encourage children to develop their artistic talents for practical purposes. They can make birthday or holiday gifts for friends and relatives and toys for younger brothers and sisters.
On Saturdays…since parenting mistakes are inevitable, we can let our failures teach us that, just like our children, we need to be loved with no strings attached. So, look for a spiritual community and trustworthy friends who love you and support your parenting efforts, just as you, in turn, support them.
© 2022 Becky Cerling Powers – Use with attribution only - www.beckypowers.com
For more parenting insights from Becky Cerling Powers see her book Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds: quick reads for helping kids thrive