All You Have to Do is Be There

Last week, we said goodbye to some long-time friends. Today, they are moving to Colorado. Our friends have four kids. Their oldest two are each a couple of weeks younger than my girls. On Thursday night, we went to a going away party for this family.

My youngest cried all the way to the party and all the way home. She was so upset that her friend was moving. We reassured her that we would visit her friend when we go to Colorado to see my husband's family this summer, but it didn't make a difference. Her friend was leaving, and her heart was broken.

I think the toughest part of being a parent is watching your kids hurt and not being able to do anything about it. I can't change the fact that our friends are moving. I can't shelter my girls from mean people. I can't create a bubble around them that keeps out any illness, sadness or hurt.

What I can do is be there for my kids. I can hold their hands when they hurt. I can wipe their tears when they cry. I can pray with them when their little hearts are breaking.

And, sometimes, that's what our kids need most. They don't need us to fix all their problems. They don't need us to protect them from every hurt. They don't need us to choose their friends or make the ground smooth. They simply need us to be there. They need us to be available. They need us to offer good advice. They need us to boost their spirits.

As our kids grow and become independent, we have to let them begin to walk some roads alone. We have to let them outside of our sheltering arms and let them be vulnerable to all the hurts, the trials and the difficulties that come with growing up. Yet, we can take comfort in knowing that although our kids have stepped outside the shelter we can provide, our kids never have to step outside the sheltering arms of God. Psalm 91:1 says "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty."

When you can't protect your kids from the hurt and disappointment that come their way, remember tat God is right there to keep your kids under His sheltering arms. And sometimes all they need from you is for you to be there, too.

Raising Compassionate Kids

My youngest daughter came home from school the other day feeling sad for a little boy in her class. His cat had died before he came to school that day.

"Mom, he talked about that cat every day. He played with it every day after school. It could even play baseball," she said.

Now, it's not surprising to me that my daughter would be concerned about one of her classmates or upset that another person's pet had died. I know we would all be devastated if anything happened to our dog.

What was surprising was how deeply this little boy's pet tragedy affected her. You see, she doesn't really get along all that well with this little boy. Usually, her re-telling of her day includes at least one thing that this boy did that annoyed her.

However, when this little boy was feeling awful about his cat dying, my daughter was able to set aside all the ways he annoys her and offer him her compassion.

Compassion is simply recognizing someone else's hurt and doing something about it. We want to raise kids who can recognize when someone else is hurting. We want them to want to do something to help a hurting person.

Our natural inclination is to protect our kids from knowing that bad things happen in the world. When our kids are toddlers or preschoolers, that's not a bad idea. As they get older, though, they need to know that the world isn't always a bright and shiny place. Bad stuff happens -- to us and to others. It's how we deal with that stuff that sets us apart as Christ followers.

When hard stuff happens to the people around us, we want to recognize it and treat those people with compassion. We want our kids to know how to offer words of encouragement and how to judge those moments when its better to just be silent and offer a shoulder to cry on.

Everyone needs a friend in times of crisis -- whether that person is our bosom buddy or someone that we might not normally like. Compassion sometimes means setting aside our personal feelings about someone to offer them what they need in the midst of their crisis.

Teach your kids to recognize the hurting people in their lives and help them take steps to offer compassion.

• Help your child look at the entire situation. Sometimes people lash out at others when they are hurting. When that happens to your child, talk with them about why the other person may have acted the way they did. Help your child look past her own feelings to understand the feelings of the other person.
• Brainstorm ways to help. Your child can make a difference by showing compassion to others. Help your child decide on a way to help their hurting friend. It can be a simple word of encouragement, a gift or just spending time with the other child.
• Don't hide the tough stuff. If your child catches a glimpse of the news talking about an earthquake or other disaster, don't pretend it's not a big deal. Be honest in answering his questions. Talk about ways we can help those who were affected. We can pray for them, send money or send supplies. Finding a way to help others makes your child a part of the solution and gives them power over a scary situation.

God wants us to show compassion to others. Ephesians 4:32 says "Be kind and compassionate to one another."

Showing compassion to others doesn't take much time or money. It simply takes paying attention to the people around us.

Finding Help and Comfort

My 10-year-old daughter played in a soccer tournament this weekend. She played five games in three days, with three of them on Sunday. Her team played amazingly well, and for the first time, they made it to the championship game.

The final game was a nail biter. Both teams played really well. It ended in a 0-0 tie. The tie breaker in this tournament was a shootout. Five girls from each team got a chance to go one-on-one with the goalie. The team with the most goals wins. If it's still tied after five, it goes to sudden death -- first team to score when the other one doesn't wins.

My daughter's team lost in the sixth round of the shootout. The girls who missed their shots were devastated, feeling like they had let the team down. The goalie was upset, thinking she should have been able to stop more shots. After such a great weekend, this team that had played their best tournament ever walked off the field with heads hanging and shoulders hunched. Tears flowed.

In talking to my daughter after the game, I found out neither coach wanted to have a shootout. They both asked several times why they couldn't just declare the game a tie and give both teams the first-place medals. Neither coach wanted their girls to end up feeling as though they had failed.

A shootout at this age really boils down to not much more than luck. The coaches wanted the girls to walk off the field with their heads held high, knowing that they had played their best. They knew a shootout would leave two girls -- the goalie and the last girl to miss -- feeling horrible. After playing so well, neither coach wanted that for either team.

But there was to be no bending of the rules on this day, so to the shootout we went. The coaches' request reminded me of what it's like to be a parent. We do the best we can to keep our kids from getting hurt. We protect them and love them. We offer guidance and try to keep them out of situations that will leave their heads hanging, their shoulders hunched and the tears falling. We ask God to protect them.

Yet sometimes, despite our best efforts and our diligent prayers, the hurt gets through. The painful experience happens. The world wallops our kid with a healthy dose of disappointment.

Our kids don't make the team or get a part in the play. Someone says hurtful things to our children. Broken relationships bring sorrow and uncertainty to our children's lives.

It's in these times that we want to teach our kids to turn to the only source of help -- God. When hurt walks into our children's lives, we want them to know the ultimate source of help and comfort. Psalm 54:4 says "Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me" and Psalm 119:76 says "May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant."

God always offers us help and comfort in difficult times. He doesn't take the difficult circumstances away, but He does offer us a way through those circumstances. He promises never to leave our side. We want our kids to know that no matter how dire the situation seems, no matter how awful it makes them feel, God is waiting to help them through it.

• Talk to your kids about what the word comfort means. Ask how they feel most comforted in a difficult situation. Ask them who they turn to for comfort. Talk about how God is the ultimate comforter. He offers us His unconditional love. In tough circumstances, He's just waiting to offer us peace through His love.
• When your child is in the midst of a difficult situation, talk with him about the ways that God can help him deal with it. Make a list of the things God could do. Write down all the possibilities you can come up with, even if they seem outlandish. Talk about how God may not choose to take the problem away or zap our enemies, but He is there to offer help.
• Help your child see that God is bigger than their problem -- no matter how big the problem seems. Place a small rock on the table next to the biggest rock you can find. Ask your child which rock they think represents their problem. Talk about how God is the big rock, and their problem is the pebble. No matter how big our problems seem, to God they are always the size of the pebble. God is bigger than our problems, and He can help us through them.

Just as my daughter's coach couldn't protect his team from the disappointment of losing their game in a shootout, we can't always protect our kids from pain and disappointment. But we can direct them to the ultimate source of help and comfort when tough things come their way.

Learning from a Backyard Game

We're still waiting for spring weather to arrive here. The past week has been chilly and gloomy. Yesterday afternoon, we saw a sliver of sun, and my girls talked me into heading outside to play a game of Spud with them.

Spud is a simple game. Everyone gets a number. One person throws the ball up in the air and calls a number. That person chases the ball. Everyone else tries to get as far away from the ball as possible. When the person whose number was called has the ball in her hands, she yells Spud. She can then take three giant steps toward someone and throw the ball. If the ball hits the person she threw it at, that person gets a letter. If it misses, the person who threw the ball gets the letter. The person who gets the letter throws the ball the next time. When you have enough letters to spell SPUD, you're out. Last person standing wins.

By the time our game was over, we had one split and bruised knee, two girls who were mad at each other, several accusations of cheating and one child in tears because she got out. Probably not the most successful game I've ever played with my kids.

Life is like that game of Spud. Some days leave us battered and bruised and shaking our heads. Sometimes our kids do things that defy explanation, like the shouting match my youngest got into with one of the neighbor girls during our game. She knows better, but in the heat of the moment, she didn't care. Neither did her friend.

Sometimes life throws things into our path that knock us down -- like the rock one of the neighbor girls tripped over that caused her to split open her knee. We end up bloody and bruised and watching life from the sidelines because it hurts too much to play the game.

And sometimes life disappoints us, and all we want to do is sit in the corner and cry -- like my ultra-competitive older daughter when she got her last letter in the game. It's tough to find our smile and see the good in the situation. It's much easier to sit and sulk.

But, you know what? There's always something to be learned in the missed opportunity, the disappointment and the blood and bruises. My younger daughter and her friend were pulled aside and given the opportunity to think about their actions and how they want to be treated. The neighbor who hurt her knee got a chance to sit and watch the game and play referee, which gave her the opportunity to practice fairness. My older daughter got a lesson in sportsmanship to turn her pout about losing into a smile over playing the game.

If we take the time with our kids in the midst of the hurt and disappointments in life to help them find the lessons, we teach them to look for the good in the middle of the bad. We teach them that everything in life is an opportunity to learn something.

Jesus often did this with His disciples. In the midst of the soldiers coming to take Him to His death, He took a moment to teach. When one of his disciples cut off the ear of one of the soldiers, Jesus healed the ear and said to his disciples, "“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matthew 26:52-54)

Despite the horrible circumstances, Jesus didn't pass up one last chance to teach His disciples. He could have been focused on His fate. Instead He was focused on making sure His disciples understood what was happening.
We want to be like Jesus. No matter how big the hurt and disappointment of the day, the goal is to always be teaching and pointing our kids toward Jesus -- even when life beats us and our kids down.


The best thing about a day full of hurt and disappointment is that it has an end. Tomorrow is coming, and that day is a clean slate. It's a chance to try again and get it right. It's an opportunity to ask God to help us not stumble in the same places that we stumbled today.

So, take the time to teach your kids in the moments of hurt, anger and disappointment. The lessons they learn in those moments are some of the most valuable you can teach.

Memory Monday: Working Through Disappointment (Romans 8:28)

Do you like the Everyday Truth blog? Want to go deeper in learning how to teach your children Biblical truths? Join me for the Everyday Truth Bible study from 9:30-11:30 on Wednesday mornings at Westside Family Church in Lenexa. Childcare is available. Register at Westside Family Church. Click on LifeStudies and type Everyday Truth into the search box.

Can't join me in the mornings? I'll be teaching a new parenting study called Laying the Foundation: Being the Parent God Intended on Wednesday evenings from 6:30-8. We'll be looking at how we can model our parenting on God's example so we can be the parent our children need. This study is co-ed, and childcare is available. Register at Westside Family Church. Click on LifeStudies and type Laying the Foundation into the search box.

My 7-year-old daughter recently went to an event she had been looking forward to for a long time. She was so excited about getting to do something fun and sharing it with her friends. Unfortunately, she got put into a group that didn't have any of her friends in it. Although she had fun, when she came home the thing she was most focused on was her disappointment in not getting to share the event with her friends. It took me a good 10 minutes to get her to start focusing on the things that she did like about the evening.

It seems to be human nature to focus on the things that go wrong instead of the things that go right. Disappointment is a part of life, and we need to help our kids understand that they will be disappointed, but there is always something good to come out of that disappointment. Romans 8:28 says "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." This verse simply means that if you are a Christ-follower, then God can use anything -- disappointments and hurts included -- for our good.

As you memorize this verse this week, work with your kids to help them see how God has used and is using their hurts and disappointments for their good. Remind them that sometimes it may take a while for them to see how God can use something that we consider bad for our good. Help your children to understand that this verse doesn't mean that nothing bad will ever happen to them. It simply means that God can take those hurts and tears and use them to honor Him.

• When your child faces a hurt or a disappointment, ask them to think of another time that they were hurt or disappointed that eventually turned out OK. Help them to focus on the end result instead of the moment of hurt. When I finally got my daughter to talk about something other than her disappointment at being separated from her friends, she discovered that she really did have a good time at the event. Helping your kids move past the immediate pain of the situation to focus on the "big picture" lets them see that while an event may hurt for a little while, they may gain something important from the situation.
• Play the Pollyana game. Pollyana is the story of a little girl who is able to find the good in every situation. It's a great book, and if you haven't read it with your kids, I highly recommend it. To play the Pollyana game, simply ask your kids to name one good thing about whatever situation their in. The game forces them to look for the glimmer of good in a bad situation.
• Don't gloss over your children's feelings of hurt or disappointment. Let them pour out their hearts to you before trying to get them to see that there is life on the other side. It's important to let them know that it's OK to feel hurt and disappointment as long as we don't wallow in those feelings forever. It's our job as parents to let our kids express their feelings and then help them to move past the situation.

Remember that how your kids see you dealing with hurt and disappointment is just as important as anything you can say to them. If you wallow in the hurt, then your kids will follow your example, but if you trust that God has something good in mind, even if you can't see it, then that's the attitude your children will take as well.