A while back, on Facebook, one of my friends wrote a comment like this: Something sweet and banal about children, friends and Jesus. One of his friends commented something like they aren't banal. Friends and children can be mean sometimes, and you shouldn't deal with Jesus unless you want to come undone.
I have to agree that there is nothing banal about children but not because they're mean. However, just as, well maybe, you shouldn't deal with Jesus unless you want to be undone, I don't think you should deal with children, or at least not try to raise them, unless you want to be undone. I had thought about this, and then someone shared this link to "Presence Parenting" which just explains it so well. http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f6dfa116c918f9b5a6e3493a3&id=f4c78f878d
"Peaceful parenting did not come natural for me once my first child hit the toddler years and I was faced with how to respond to questionable behavior. It’s not that I didn’t want peace, it’s that it has required quite the undoing of non-peace to actualize it in our home… and we continue to focus on peaceful conflict resolution
Peaceful parenting requires diligence in observing where I am parenting from moment-to-moment and what short and long-term results I really want to create in our family.
Through many ups and downs in life I decided that parenting in peace was something I’d die for. Even though I did not initially realize it, this meant that the “me” I thought I was would die. Not me – the physical expression and body known as Amy – but all of the stories, patterns, and actions that were not serving me or my family. Such a death does not occur instantly or without pain in many instances. And it certainly requires a focus on what one is living and standing for.
We can choose peace. In any moment, in all moments… over and over again until there’s nothing left but peace. It starts with us, on the personal level. Join me in the journey…"
