"I Dare you to love me.Just try it."
My pastor has been preaching about the role of parents in the life of a child, and talking about questions that little boys and little girls need answered. For boys it is, "Do I have what it takes?" and "Do you delight in me?" For girls it is, "Do you hear me and see me?" and "Am I beautiful?" For many of our tutoring kids, these questions are going unanswered at home, and I want us to prayefully consider how we/you might be used by God to help answer it. "Yes, young man, you have what it takes to succeed, and I enjoy having you around." "Yes, young woman, you are beautiful, and I hear your heart."
I know as well as you do that there are some kids who come who are harder to love, who resist your best intentions with cool passivity or even rebellion, and if you are like me, your first reaction could be anger and trying to motivate them to be disciplined and follow the rules. But what I am seeing in many of these kids, even in their disobedience, is them saying, "I DARE YOU to love me. Just try it." I am tempted to respond to that with frustraion of self-justification ("hey, I'm doing the best I can; just trust me"). But God has been speaking to me and teaching me through a few specific kids that what they long know that even if they don't do their work, or bring homework, or read, that I delight in them and that I am glad to see them just for them. That doesn't mean we don't discipline them. But it does mean that we take time to listen before we react, we seek the source of their anger and hurt rather than simply trying to correct it, and we patiently give them a voice to express what they are feeling and why they are struggling against us. Rules and discipline must be led by and enveloped by love and acceptance, and our kids must come to know that you ACCEPT and LIKE them, even when they are being difficult. Love alone will win the day and will produce the fruit and obedience that we long to see in our friends that we are working with. Please pray and ask God to fill you with love for these kids. I have seen Him faithfully and powerfully answer that prayer in my life.
Scriptural references for the above: He alone gives us the acceptance that we ask for (Romans 15:7b accept one another just as Christ has accepted you). He alone has loved us before we ever knew what love was (Jeremiah 31:3 - I have loved you with an everlasting love; 1 John 4:19 - We love because He first loved us). He alone delights in us as our Maker (John 1:3 Through Him all things were made; Psalm 139:13-14 PS 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. PS 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful, I know that full well.). He alone knows every tear that has fallen from our eyes (Rev . 7:17 - He will wipe away every tear from their eyes). And He alone holds the key to freedom and life, which is the forgiveness of our sins, the abilitity to forgive others, and the transforming presence and power of His very life in us (1 John 5:11-12 - 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.)
-Marshal-
posted by Suzanne at 4:07 PM
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