Today was one such day. Samuel spent a good portion of the day that whenever he spoke he started crying. I eventually sent him to bed for a rest until he was able to give me an answer to a question I asked him.
The whole point to this story is that it started making me think about God and how He feels when "we" (ME) always cry to him about life. When I am tired, frustrated, hungry, or disappointed I cry to Him about how hard life is. I wonder if He ends up wanting to treat me the way I deal with my kids. Maybe I'm in timeout. Because there has to be a reason I spend SO much time alone. Anyway, if you look at the Bible you don't read about how Jesus whines and cries about how hard it is to be human. Here you have the Lord of the ENTIRE universe walking around in human clothes dealing with the frustrations of being human but He didn't cry about everything. (I wonder if He felt depressed. I doubt it. Is depression a sin? Hm, maybe this a whole different blog post.) While Jesus did cry and asked to be released from what He had to do, He still did it.
I can't help but be reminded of how much God loves us when I am so weak that I cry to Him all the time and He doesn't yell at me.
5 comments:
I totally hear you about the crying thing-it's enough to drive this mother crazy too! And I know I'm learning to respond to my kids the way my Father responds to me, it's tough but I'm learning.
And I would say no, depression isn't a sin; I can think of poor Elijah hiding in cave -that seems like depression to me. But what does God do? He shows up and gives Elijah direction and wisdom. (1 Kings 19)
Thanks for stopping by my blog, I appreciate your comments!
I haven't had to learn how to deal with THAT kind of crying yet, but I want to pull my hair out around 3 or 4am every morning when Baby Boy apparently prefers crying over sleeping (or anything else for that matter). Counting down the days now until Daddy can bear part of the burden.
You are not alone, Ruth. Mothers across the world are with you in spirit :).
I know what you mean! A couple of months ago, I established a "crying corner." When the kids are crying about something silly (obviously not because they are physically or emotionally hurt), they go to the crying corner. It's different than time out, because it's not a punishment, and they are welcome to come out as soon as they calm down. I'm hoping that it will teach them the life skill of removing themself from a situation for a few minutes in order to sort through their emotions, rather than just reacting. At the very least, it helps because it gives me a little space when I am close to losing it... :-)
I have 4 children, all adults now with children of their own. They are fine responsible people in spite of their dysfunctional upbringing. I think sometimes we get frustrated with their crying because we enter moments of copelessness and can't deal with theirs. Thus the anger. Sometimes it might help to give the child a time-out hug while we gather our thoughts. Then let the child tell you and he may be less apt to keep crying. Of course all children are different as are the situations, but it's worth a try. I liked your reasoning about Jesus not being a whiner. He never cried to the apostles because of their many shortcomings.
Oh, Ruth, my friend... He cried. He wept over his friends, his people... He was "a man acquainted with grief and familiar with suffering." I'm not saying He whined. But He did ask for certain cups to pass if at all possible but then submitted His will to his father's. He would ask no more and no less of us. Cry, cry, cry. It is a broken world and God knows it better than any of us.
(I know this is an old post I'm responding to but I'm sure it still applies if I know anything about life!!)
((hugs))
Post a Comment