The Ultimate Balancing Act - by Beth

I love the thought that raising children is an art, but have also thought of it as stewardship. These wonderful, unique, limitless little lives come to us, uncharted and undiscovered, and we as moms are stewards of their well-being and their precious potential. How do we engage them with the world's delights, and also protect them from the world's dangers? The idea of achieving a balance between rules and grace -- opens a flood of memories for me about hundreds of my own parenting struggles over the years.

One of those memories brings me back to a time when my daughter and I had a disagreement about a rule. It involved something that "all the other kids" got to do, but was not permitted in our family. My daughter was understandably distressed, but I had to remain firm. This was one time when bending he rule would bring consequences and set up wrong expectations. We got through the moment, but my little girl was hurt and angry. Soon afterwards we were driving down Jericho Turnpike in Mineola. The street dips down steeply at one point to go under the railroad overpass. Next to the street, the sidewalk actually doesn't dip so steeply. As a result, there is a sizable vertical drop-off at the edge of the sidewalk. A steel railing is there, just for a hundred feet or so, to keep pedestrians from falling a few feet down into the path of cars.
We happened to be waiting there at the traffic light, under that overpass, and my daughter was watching a person walk alongside us - actually just watching their feet, because only their feet were at eye level.
A thought struck me and I told her: "See that railing? Normally, there's no guardrail between the sidewalk and the street. Because normally, the curb is just a few inches high and it's not too dangerous. Here, though, if you stepped off the sidewalk into the street, you would fall and get really hurt. So people put a guardrail up for protection."
"Honey, that's how God's rules work. He wants us to have a great walk through life. But in places where it might get dangerous, He puts rules, like guardrails, to keep us safe so we won't get hurt. I want you to stay safe, too. When God made me your mom, He put me in charge of your well-being, to keep you safe so you can grow up into the wonderful person He meant you to be. That's the most important thing to Him, and that's my most important role in life. So - do you understand why I say no sometimes?"

Over time, and as a result of much mercy and soul-searching, I was able to establish a pattern of credibility in my rule-setting. My kids learned to trust my judgment about boundary-setting, because there were usually pretty evident reasons behind the rules -- reasons that linked right into their own well-being. But even when they weren't so sure that old Mom really knew best, they still trusted my motivation. They knew I was not trying to ease my stress or prove my worth, somehow, by manipulating the boundaries to fit my hidden agenda. They were able to see, reflected as clearly as possible in my murky human sinner's heart, the spark of stewardship behind the "no's" that I imposed.

As mothers, we are also bound by the rules, yet under grace. Our kids need to see us obeying God joyfully, taking their needs seriously, and administering love in both the rules we enforce, and the exceptions we permit. If we are parenting from the perspective of stewardship, then we will be loving, reliable, authentic people to our kids -- with no shadow of a self-serving agenda. And hopefully, our kids will learn to navigate their futures with God's chart and compass, as they watch us navigate all the nuances of everyday family life.
Let us then be loving, reliable, and authentic to our children. Let us reach their hearts with God's love in all its forms -- tender hugs and smooches, focused attention, fervent validation, kooky humor, occasional indulgences, and the steel-riveted guardrails of protection and safety known as "rules." And let's always take the time to tell the difference between a sudden drop into traffic that's a few feet steep -- and an ordinary curb that's just a few inches deep.

Setting the stage for great things in our kids' lives does take wisdom. It's a good thing He is faithful to give us in-the-moment "mom inspirations", like my story of the guardrail. Let's trust Him to fill our awareness with special ways that we can communicate His truth right into the depths of our kids' unique souls, and plant seeds of understanding there that will bear fruit all life long.