MY SON

MY SON

  • Teens, Testimonies

MY SON

My son is just that – MY SON! He had made a mess by going against my instructions, not once but three times. He wanted something and felt tempted by it even though he knew it was wrong. As we walked through this, something really hurt my heart, and I had to process it with the Lord. Yes, teens rebel. I get that. Teen brain is a real thing. Yes, kids make messes. I get that. Foolishness is the right of the immature. But I am his mother and have established trust his entire life, and I am not about to let teen brain speak to him otherwise about who I am as his mom. I told him part of his consequence is to go back and handle the situation differently. He had to put some effort into really pondering how he could have done it differently, and I suggested he write me a note. Tears came to my eyes as I read his HEART on paper, communicating his wants and desires with me and asking for permission to ‘break the rule’ for the reasons listed. It was respectful, kind, and quite mature. I came to him and asked how he felt about the mess he had made and the consequences given. He felt awful as tears were still fresh in his eyes. I told him that God cares about the desires of his heart, and SO DO I. Had he taken the time to bring his desires in the light, he most likely could have not only had his wish granted but without the price tag of lying and breaking connection. Sin never works well in the long wrong, and I am so glad he is learning this more and more now.

EMMA’S OUTFIT

I have favorite stories of my children about how God encountered their hearts. This is my favorite one of Emma’s because we are still seeing the fruit of it a decade later.

When Emma was five, she came to me sobbing that she hated her outfit. I encouraged her to pick out something else. She did, and that, too, produced an ocean of tears. She set off to find something else, but the flood of tears continued. At this point, I was getting a little annoyed and frustrated. We were already super late for Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house, and clothes were simply a non-issue in my home up until that point. Why did they matter so much now? By the fifth outfit, I was about to give her a good lecture on, “naked you came, naked you will leave,” and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I heard her tears coming back up the stairs, and suddenly Holy Spirit whispered, “Ask her WHY.” I sat her down and asked why she hated her clothes. She stated immediately that it was because she wasn’t pretty enough (lie). But we had to keep asking questions. WHY did she believe she wasn’t pretty enough? She then revealed the painful splinter: “Because my daddy doesn’t love me.”

Satan had whispered to her that he didn’t like her because she wasn’t pretty enough and that if only she could find the right outfit, she would be pretty enough to be loved. Imagine if the splinter had not been dealt with that day. Fast forward several years to when she is fifteen. Her unresolved need for love drives her to dress for boys’ attention. What about when she is twenty-five and married and causes a great amount of debt due to her obsession with shopping in an attempt to feel good about herself?

The hurts, lies, and offenses are there to steal, kill, and destroy our relationships with God, ourselves, and others. I believe that the enemy was seeking to plant a lie deep in Emma that day that would reap a harvest for a lifetime through the pain with her father. I explained that the voice she heard was not Jesus but His enemy.

Because kids have free will, I always ask, “Would you like to tell that lie to leave?” It empowers rather than controls them. She said she wanted to get rid of the lie, so I led her through a prayer that looked like this: “Jesus, I confess I believed the lie that I am not pretty enough to be loved.” “Jesus, I forgive my dad for not making me feel like a princess.” “Jesus, where were You when I got my feelings hurt?” “Jesus, how do You feel about me?” She sat there with her eyes closed and her head bowed and suddenly got the biggest smile on her face. She looked up and said with excitement, “Mom! I wore this beautiful dress, and my hair was like a ballerina’s. I was dancing with Jesus, and He said I was HIS princess!” While that was indeed a sweet moment, what is so awesome about this story is that God used it all for good when the enemy came to harm and hurt.

To this day, years later, that girl KNOWS she is Jesus’ princess!

DISPENSARY VS. DEPENDENCY

How many of you could say in this hour, “I feel like I am doing everything right yet not producing the fruit that I desire”? Your A plus B is not equaling C! I confronted Hudson on his attitude towards his family after he came home from a friend’s house. I fully understand that his friends meet a profound need in this season of life, but that doesn’t mean he gets to be rude or disrespectful to us when he returns. A few hours later, he bounced back inside the house from being with his friend, full of joy and kindness. He gave me a big hug and told me he loved me. I thought he got it and was proud of him for receiving my correction. But two minutes later, he asked for a big favor. I felt slimed. He did what I told him to do and even did it ‘right,’ but his motives were for what he could get out of me, not out of genuine affection. A dispensary is a room where medicines are prepared and provided. No one ever lives there but stops by when they need something, generally to put them out of their physical or emotional misery. Dependency is the state of relying on or needing someone or something for aid, support, or help. God invites us to depend upon Him through confidence and trust in who He is. We are called to live in this continued posture with Him.  Are we doing all of the ‘right’ things in the ‘right’ way but coming to Him like a dispensary attempting to get something from Him to alleviate our pain and discomfort, or are we coming to Him out of the confidence we need Him? I am confident in this hour that God is removing the dispensary from the church and body. He is calling us into a deeper dependency upon His nature, character, and heart for us. The question is, do we really want Him or just what He can do for us? 

HEALING TRIGGERS

“Last night my husband startled me so badly that I became so enraged and punched him, which is unlike me because I’m not much of a physical person. I was so angry I wanted to cry. This morning God revealed to me how I felt an extreme lack of protection from my father. My dad always thought it was funny to scare the living daylights out of me. He wasn’t trying to torment me. He was playing, but for me, the way I am wired, it was torment. I had to forgive my dad for not protecting me and not making me feel safe and secure. Ahhhh!! Sweet relief!”

WHAT’S MY NAME?

My daughter was having an unusually rough day, and I kept catching her sneaking things, which was so out of character for her. We asked Jesus to shine His bright flashlight in her heart, which provoked her to ask me the meaning of her name. I showed her a fun book where she could look it up. Once she found it, she began to cry and said, “Oh, I am so glad! I thought my name meant deceiver.” I was shocked, but as I listened to her, I realized she had misunderstood something someone had said. She then partnered with the voice/thought that told her she was a deceiver and guess how she acted that day. We then asked Jesus what her name meant to Him, and she heard “hard worker.” Guess how she started acting since she heard that. 

Here is the mental shift: my old way of parenting would have disciplined her for sneaking things and not being honest. While that is something I would want to deal with, it wasn’t the issue. The heart issue was that she believed a lie about her identity. Her joy and peace returned when her identity was secured in the truth.

BIG EMOTIONS

The family operates like the gears in a machine. My sweet Ellie was in a season of big emotions (oh boy). I could tell the emotions were overwhelming her, but when I asked if she was okay, she said, “Yes. I am totally fine,” yet moments later, she released a bunch of crooked emotions. It made quite a mess and affected everyone in the family, including being late for school and my meeting. When she came home from school, she asked to talk about it, quickly apologizing. I sensed more was going on as this was becoming a new pattern and not just a bad day moment. We revisited earlier that day when I invited her to give her heart a voice, and she lied when she said she was ‘totally fine.’ We began to ask Jesus to show us why she was not honest. She said, “I am used to doing things right, and I do not like it when I make a mess.” I encouraged her to allow Jesus to speak into that area as He wants us to live whole and fruitful lives. If we are uncomfortable with our growth and process, we will move into a performance-based lifestyle, which is not His will or Kingdom. I asked her “What about making a mess makes your heart so uncomfortable?” and she burst into tears. YEP. There it is. She recalled a situation not that long ago where I had just spent the entire afternoon lavishing on her and intentionally connecting 1:1 but she came home and began picking a fight with her siblings. I had a meeting to get to and lots to do (I was running late because I was out with her). I commented how her attitude was affecting the rest of us, and since that comment, she felt like having big emotions was bad, so she lied about how she was feeling. Was that my true heart? NO! Was I telling her she couldn’t have emotions? NO! Was I trying to shut her down? NO! Did I handle the situation the best I could? NOPE. I was rushed, pressured, and honestly a bit frustrated with her that I had just poured so much into her, and she was choosing disconnection with her siblings. Her ‘lying’ was revealing a heart splinter (hurt, lie, or offense). That is a GOOD thing. As we sat with Jesus, He showed us what was going on underneath her lying and brought the lie she believed about not being allowed to have big emotions into alignment. Parenting was never meant to be a call to perfection. It was meant to operate like the gears of a machine, knowing that everyone affects each other and can be used for HIS glory and HIS alignment. She got set free from the lie. I got to model humility by cleaning up my own mess. 

P.S. If you want to learn more about how to partner with God in your parenting, consider joining our online JOURNEY class: Journey – ONLINE CLASS – Let the Children Fly

SHE IS DIFFERENT

I took my twins on a day trip to go shopping. I had an allotted amount in my mind that I wanted to lavish on them. I envisioned spending the whole time focusing on them and making them feel seen and special. The first two stores were on my list, and I zoomed in and out at record speed, knowing we had a lot of ground to cover. We went to Forever 21, and two hours later, Emma was ready for the dressing room. There was no place to sit, so I camped out on the dirty floor as the girls giggled, tried on their clothes, and came out to show me. An hour later, Emma is still putting on her fashion show, and I am growing agitated. I rebuked my inner attitude and told it to be joyful (it didn’t work, but I tried). I have never been so excited to leave a store. We entered the next one, and the same thing happened. The first 30 minutes were fun exploring the store, but an hour later, Lauren and I sat there with her pile of selected items waiting for Emma to come out with outfit #88. I released my frustration by commenting, “Are you almost done?” with a tone that communicated I wasn’t enjoying this as much as she was. I felt like I was going to lose it and heard the Lord say, “Go ahead, but you will have to clean up your mess.” As I sat there processing the mess I was about to make (and weighing if it was worth it), I suddenly saw clearly that this wasn’t a case of Emma doing something wrong but about us having utterly different shopping styles. God showed me a picture of releasing my frustration in a way that communicated to my daughter that there was something wrong with her and that she needed to conform to make me comfortable. I realized this is how young girls shut down and turn from their true selves. They are raised to keep mama happy and deny their true selves to keep connection and peace. This is never a child’s job description, and we need to be super careful we are managing our hearts so that we don’t unintentionally shut down our true selves. Suddenly, I noticed that Emma came out of the room with her original clothes on but still had a pile to try on. Her entire demeanor was different, and the joy was gone from her eyes. I asked her why and she said, “It’s okay. I realize I took too long,” but her real heart was sad and disappointed. I wrestled with managing my own frustrations and caring for her heart. We sat on the bench outside the store, and I began to tell her what God had shown me. It was uber important for her to see that her style of shopping stretches me to the core, but that didn’t mean her way was wrong. She was NOT in sin or disobedience, nor was anything wrong with her. She would have giggled the entire time if she had been with peers. However, I explained to her that shopping with me meant she might need to tone it down a bit, not because it was wrong, but to honor those around her. I checked in with her a couple of times to ensure she wasn’t partnering with lies or feeling like something was wrong with her just because I am wired differently from her. I gave her examples of times I have stretched others and had to learn when to tone it down to honor them while still being true to how I was created. It is a dance of learning how to manage our hearts and parenting our child’s hearts.

EYES THAT SEE

My daughter was complaining about her eyesight, and something didn’t feel right about it (not sure why or what, but it didn’t sit right in my spirit). She came to me one day wearing my glasses, telling me how cool she looked in them. Hmmm. I asked her if any part of her wanted her eyes to be bad enough to need glasses, and she admitted she did because some of her friends have them, and they look ‘cool.’ I explained to her that when we WANT our bodies to be broken, we are actually inviting it in. We renounced the lie that she needed glasses to be cool and then prayed for her eyes to work the way they were created. It is one thing to need glasses to assist a physical condition. It is another thing to invite brokenness to feed a lie.

SET FREE

A mom from class shares: “I was not supposed to be able to carry a baby to full term due to medical issues. My whole first pregnancy was bathed in fear of a miscarriage. The doctors continually warned me not to get my hopes up for a baby (even up until I was 30 weeks along!). Then, I noticed my son was very fearful and wouldn’t talk when we were out of the house. He was chatty at home but would freeze up at church, the park, or wherever. Then God showed me the connection of fear and my pregnancy with my son. I repented of the fear I partnered with (although I didn’t know that term at the time), and my husband and I prayed over him as he slept and commanded the spirit of fear to leave in Jesus’ name. The next day we went to the park with friends, and he was his usual chatty self. I didn’t see the spirit of fear in operation at all! He was free! It was amazingly simple. We are teaching him that fear is a liar, and he wants him to believe things that aren’t true. And now we are teaching him to cast fear out when he feels it. It’s amazing.”

SURE FOUNDATION

The other night my daughter was ANGRY and lashing out at everyone for the smallest things. Clearly, this was not her, as she is normally sweet as chocolate. The following morning, I asked her to do the dishes, which should have been a four-minute gig, and 1.5 hours later, she was still there. It was time to go, and she still hadn’t finished. I came to her and put my hand on her heart and said, “Babe, I do not know what is going on, but you were not wired to hold onto sin, and something is clearly coming out crooked. When you are ready to talk, I am here.” I didn’t know there was sin, but those were the words that came out of my mouth. She asked to talk hours later and, with tears, began to tell me that she was invited by her friends to vape at school. She declined the offer, but the realization that she had to stand alone was overwhelming to her. I wanted to assure her that it wouldn’t happen again, but the truth is she will have to stand alone and make choices against the pressure of the crowd for the rest of her life. It was a beautiful and tender conversation about what it really means to be a follower of Jesus in today’s world. We talked about the ‘high’ of popularity and the joy of obedience. The next morning at Church, worship began, and I leaned over to her and said, “Sweetheart, focus on this song with your situation in mind. Is He worthy of following, even if it means not vaping with your friends?”  I HATE that she was asked by her friends to vape, but I am SO glad it agitated her soul to the point of being exposed and that God used it to be yet another building block in her story with Him. He IS worthy of it all!

JESUS AND NAILS

 We had to catch a morning flight out of Sacramento, and I kept changing the time I thought we should leave. Finally, half joking, I said, “Jesus, what time should I leave?” We left at that time. In the middle of nowhere, my light comes on, saying my back tire is low. We stopped, and the nice attendant turned on the air for free. I filled it up but heard God tell me to check the tire. I kept moving to rotate the tire so I could inspect it. Sure enough, there was a nail! I decided to see if it would hold, but I was losing pressure quickly within minutes. I pulled off, and a tire place was right there. But it was only 7 am, and they didn’t open till 8. If I waited till 8, I would have missed my flight. We called, and the manager answered, saying he would start his day early for me. As I pulled in, he was waiting for me. Expecting to walk out with two new, unexpected tire purchases, he said he could patch it and then had the heart to not even charge me. I tried to tip him but to no avail. From the time I pulled off till I was on the road again was *15 minutes*. Had that happened just two miles later, we would have been stranded on the side of nowhere! I swelled with His goodness and laughed when I heard Him say, “I know about nails.” He knew the nail would be in the road and had me leave earlier, stop when and where we did, and provided each step of the way. Wow!