Parenting with God Series… How they are bent

I organized my children with some of our neighbourhood children for a performance during the neighbourhood end of year party. The idea was to incorporate ballet with dance and singing but I had no clue how to do it.

So I asked what they have in mind and they came up with a series of moves and steps that all I did was fine-tune and we had our routine.

This incident reminded me of Proverbs 22:6 “train up a child the way he should go and when he grows up, he will never depart from it.” some translation says teach them the way they are bent…

Notice it didn’t say train them in the way you want them to go, rather it says the way they should go. There is a blueprint for each of us, as much as we have plans and ideas as to how we want each of our children to be, we should not be so fixed on our own imaginary blueprint that we forget to consult the original. It’s just like a builder who was given the plan for a house but chose to use the idea in their head instead.

In parenting with God, we ask for the blueprint and we look and listen as God shows us through our children. For instance, I noticed Tori’s walking step has changed. She was catwalking and walking with a bounce in her step. I was a bit worried that she was becoming aware of her femininity too early and I was tempted to nip it in the bud. frankly, I had to hold back from stopping her countless times, I asked God what do I do and how do I handle this? I was getting impatient to put a stop to it.

Then, one day she came to me and said, “Mummy do you know what? everything sounds like a dance step and music to me, including every step I take.”

She was not discovering her femininity or catwalking as I had assumed, rather it was something deeper which I would have quenched if I went with my first inclination.

I am learning that instead of reacting to things in our children or teaching them what we think they should know, we need to ask the architect and owner of the building to show us/open our eyes to what is in the blueprint and the wisdom to work with what he shows us.

Cos really, how much do we know?