When You Miss the Moment

As I sat with my youngest daughter at the NHL game on Saturday night, I got a text message from my dad. It was an update on my older daughter's soccer game. It said, "Score is 4-3. E scored 2 goals."

I thought he was kidding, not because my daughter isn't a good player, but she plays defense. She rarely makes it across the midfield mark in a game, much less gets close enough to score a goal. She's scored one goal all season. And the one week neither of her parents are there, she scores two goals and apparently has the game of her life.

While we had a great time in St. Louis with our youngest (you can read about it here), I was disappointed to have missed my older daughter's stellar performance. It feels like I missed a special moment. And I hate that.

As parents, sometimes, we miss those moments. Oh, not just the goals being scored or the big events, sometimes we miss the teachable moments. We look back at our day and think, "Wow, I missed a great opportunity." And a lot of times, we beat ourselves up for missing it.

I wish I could have been at my daughter's game. I wish she hadn't picked the one game all season that neither of us were there to have the best game she's ever had. I wish I had gotten to share that moment. But would I have given up the memories we were making with our other daughter to do so? Probably not.

I could sit here and wallow in disappointment that I missed her game. But you know what? There will be other soccer games. I will never be able to go back and capture this particular moment in her soccer life again, but there will be others. There will be tournaments to win and games where she's terrible. She might even have another two-goal game, and I will be there for most of those.

Just like there will be other teachable moments. If I miss one today, then I'll just have to look for one tomorrow. It's easy to beat ourselves up over a lost moment with our kids. Sometimes we think, "If I were a better parent, I would have dealt with that better" or "If only I hadn't been so busy, I could have captured that moment."

We all miss the moment sometimes. And it's OK. Recognize that you missed it, ask God to provide you with another teachable moment, and move on. No parent is perfect. We all screw up. We get mad when we should be calm. We chastise when we should teach. We focus on rules when we should be looking at our kids' hearts.

God knows we screw up, and He loves us anyway. He loves us so much, He's always willing to give us another chance to do better. When we screw up, we need to acknowledge it, ask for forgiveness (from God and our kids), and ask God for help to do a better job next time. When we ask God for forgiveness, He gives it and forgets about it. Psalm 103:12 says, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." We're the ones that get stuck in remembering our failures, and it keeps us from moving on to the next moment.

Don't wallow in disappointment or compare yourself to another parent. God chose you to be the parent of your child. He's going to give you all the tools you need to do so. If you miss a teachable moment, He's going to give you another one. It won't be exactly the same as the first one, but you'll get another opportunity.

I won't get another shot to see the fantastic game my daughter played on Saturday. But I will see a lot more soccer games and a lot more goals. You might not get another shot at the teachable moment you let slide by yesterday, but you will see more teachable moments today. If you're not busy dwelling on what you've missed, you'll be ready when they come around.

    

Memory Monday: I Blew It (1 John 1:9)

I spent Friday and Saturday night at our church's women's retreat. The theme for the retreat was "Rejoice!" I came home Saturday night tired but feeling refreshed and renewed. Then I promptly blew it as a parent.

I met my family at my oldest daughter's indoor soccer game. She had played an outdoor game in the snow earlier in the day, and her indoor game finished about the time she usually goes to bed. I was exhausted from staying up late the night before and teaching twice on Saturday. She was clearly exhausted from the sleepover she'd had while I was gone and playing two games that day. The combination did not end well.

As we were driving home from soccer my girls took turns telling me about the past two days. My oldest daughter told me she had forgotten to take the stuff to school for her science project and had gotten a 0 for the assignment. She also told me that her friends had given her some of their stuff but when her teacher asked her if she had brought her own stuff from home, she told him the truth and got the 0.

Did I take advantage of this opportunity to praise my child for taking her lumps even though a small lie would have saved her grade? Did I take a moment to encourage her for telling the truth instead of taking the easy way out? Nope. I took the opportunity to lecture her on responsibility, and after she went to bed, I wanted to smack myself.

God had given me a moment in which I got to see how everything we've been trying to teach our daughter about honesty has paid off. He offered me the chance to support and encourage her to do what's right even when there are no rewards. And I passed it up to focus on the less important issue.

Sure, my daughter needed to be reminded of the fact that she needs to be responsible for her homework, but what she really needed was to know that she had done the right thing in telling the truth. She looked to me to provide that for her, and I blew it.

So, what do we do when we mess up? Because it is inevitable that we are going to blow it on a regular basis. We pick ourselves up. Ask for forgiveness and move on.

Yesterday, I apologized to my daughter and offered her the praise and encouragement I should have offered her in the first place. We did talk about how she needs to be responsible for her assignments, but we didn't dwell on it.

I also asked God to forgive me for completely screwing up the opportunity he had given me and asked him to continue to offer up situations for me to teach my kids. The wonderful thing about God is that He forgives us and separates our sin from us, if we ask. 1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

Memorize this verse this week and know that God is faithful, even when we blow it. If we ask, He will forgive us and offer us new opportunities.

So, if you've blown it with your kids this weekend. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, ask both God and your kids for forgiveness and be intentional in looking for the next opportunity to love and guide your children.

Don't Get Stuck in the Muck

Friday was a typical Kansas day in July—swelteringly hot with high humidity. But Saturday morning, I enjoyed the morning sitting on my back deck, spending some quiet time with God while everyone else is still asleep. When I went to bed Friday night, the temperature was still close to 90 degrees, and the air felt like a wet blanket. Saturday morning, the temperatures were in the upper 70s, low humidity and a beautiful breeze. What a difference a day makes.

Saturday morning during my Bible reading time, I read Isaiah 43:18-19, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” That passage reminded me of how hot it was on Friday. If I had woken up Saturday morning thinking that it was going to be as miserably hot as it was Friday night, I might never have opened the door to go outside. I would have missed the beautiful morning because I was dwelling on the past.

How often do we get stuck on our past mistakes and failures and let them hold us back and keep us from moving forward? We even let them keep us from doing what God calls us to do. All we see is the hot, sweaty mess from yesterday and not the clear, cool morning of today. God wants us to move forward into the new things He has planned for us. If we mess up in our parenting, our marriage, our job or our ministry, we need to ask for forgiveness, if necessary, and move forward. God never intended for us to let our mistakes paralyze us.

This is a lesson that kids need to learn, as well. As a matter of fact, if your kids learn not to let their mistakes hold them back at a young age, life as they get older will be much easier. Think about how you teach a child to ride a bike. When they fall off, you make them get right back on so their last memory of riding isn’t the fall, but success. That’s the way we should view all of our mistakes – get right back on the bike and pedal toward the good things God has for you.

Let’s be intentional about using our children’s mistakes to teach them and to move them forward. Give your kids a push if they need it to get out of the mire of yesterday and move forward to the new thing God has for them today.

• When your kids have a tough day or make a tough mistake, talk with them about it. Encourage them and talk about what they could have done differently in that situation. Give them tools to deal with the situation should it arise again. Then, remind them that the past is over and God has new things in store for them.
• Bring out some of your kids’ favorite toys from when they were younger. Ask them if they would like to play with those toys today. Talk about how they have changed from when they were babies and toddlers. Discuss how when we grow, we leave old things, like toys, behind because there are new things to discover. Tell your children that it’s the same way with mistakes and failures in the past. We leave them behind because God has new things in store for us.
• Pour some corn syrup in a bowl. Find a small action figure, Happy Meal toy, or even a popsicle stick with a face on it. Put the action figure in the bowl and watch it sink (you may need to give it a little push). Talk about how our mistakes can be like corn syrup, if we let them. They can cover us in muck and keep us stuck in one place. Remind your children that God has a plan for them, and it’s not to sit covered in muck. Let them know that God can even use our mistakes and failure for good. Talk about Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Above all, remember that God loves you and your kids. While we will make mistakes, and we will fail at some things, God doesn’t intend for those things to hold us back. Look around and see the “new thing” that God is doing.