Does it feel like God has brought you to a season of parenting in which your only available option is to wait in hope for Him to move? I have found myself in that season often when it comes to my children’s hearts. I tend to weary myself in my efforts to shape and mold this tender part of my children that I ultimately have no control over. Each day can turn into a treadmill of exhaustion as I seek to maintain some manner of control over things I was never meant to control, hoping in my ability to bring about change.
Do you find yourself on that same treadmill? Is hope dangling out in front of you like that ever-elusive carrot that coaxes you onward? Are you having difficulty pulling the emergency stop cord on your treadmill of striving? The sometimes-chaotic seasons of parenting can tempt us to get caught up in our efforts as the commotion of the day makes it difficult to hear that still, small voice that whispers, beckoning us to cease our striving and instead wait for a hope that will not disappoint.
Scripture often uses everyday things to illustrate to us what it looks like to walk in obedience. One verse that comes to mind is Proverbs 6:6, which instructs us to look at the ant to gain wisdom in what it means to work diligently at the job before us. Sometimes that work looks more like being still and waiting on something, Someone, other than us. I try to be aware of the everyday things around me that can also teach me something about the wisdom of God. In a recent season of striving, God chose to use a flower to remind me of where to place my hope.
I received an Amaryllis Amigo bulb for Christmas. As this kind of bulb wakes from its slumber and pushes its way out of the dirt, its thick, green stalk can reach nearly two feet tall. When it blooms, it’s as if that stalk has just applied a deep pink, almost red, lipstick to its opening mouth. The bulb required nothing from me but the faithfulness to water it once a week, keeping its soil just damp to the touch. Each morning I’d awaken to find that while I slept, the bulb had visibly changed.
First, it was the green stalk that inched its way from the potted earth, stretching toward the ceiling as if it wanted to break right through and touch the sun that beckoned it upward.
Then, it was the closed bud of the flower that bid me goodnight and the opened bloom that ushered in the dawn. Each of these things required nothing of me but to wait in hope as the plant did exactly what it was created to do.
As a parent, what kind of hope resides in your heart today? Is it an uncertain hope that keeps you chasing a moving finish line that disappears as it stretches out into the distance? Or is it a sure hope that will not disappoint as each day dawns anew? The Creator of our hearts faithfully causes not just our children’s hearts, but our own as well, to grow toward the Son who beckons all of us upward. One of my favorite verses is Romans 5:5 because it reminds me of this sure hope. It promises...
“This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us."
