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It’s Sunday morning and I’m rushing to get out the door on time. Breakfast is finished, the kitchen is cleaned, and the kids are all dressed and ready to go. Because we’re having people over after church, I’m not just trying to get us out the door but also trying to keep the house reasonably tidy in the process. I pop upstairs quickly to get changed myself and to grab an extra change of clothes for the newly potty trained 2 year old. As I’m doing this I hear the voice of my 4 year old calling up to me. “Um, Mom, you should come down here. Ella’s doing something crazy.”
Sighing and glancing at the clock, I come downstairs and into the kitchen where Josh is standing looking rather helplessly at the scene unfolding in front of him.
The kitchen floor is covered in tin foil, saran wrap, and parchment paper. It’s everywhere. I can barely see the floor underneath. How is it even possible that she made a mess like this in a mere couple of minutes?
Because we’re rushing to leave, because I’m a parent who struggles with impatience to begin with, because tin foil and saran wrap and parchment paper aren’t cheap, and because I’m just plain old annoyed that Ella has chosen this moment to do this new thing, I feel a surge of angry frustration.
I’m quick to become angry with my child.
In that moment, for reasons that I can’t explain or maybe just because of His intervening grace, I didn’t immediately swoop in with angry words and impatient gestures. I just stood there in silent frustration.
In that moment of quiet, Ella turned to look up at me. Her sweet, impish face was sparkling with joy and, with a sweeping gesture to the shiny curly twirly “mess” around her, said, “Look what I made for you, Mommy. Isn’t it beautiful? I made it just for you.”
The Slow-to-Anger Parent Doesn’t Assume Heart Motive
Why are we so quick to assume motive and assign malicious intention when it comes to our children? In other relationships in our lives we are more careful to at least try to hope the best about people. And yet with our precious often innocent little ones, we can be so quick to assign motive and assume that the reason they’ve made a mess or done whatever it is they’ve done is because they’re just trying to be little jerks messing up our plans. I mean, of course we’d never actually say that or even think that. But when we jump to conclusions and are so quick to get angry at them, that’s essentially what we’re doing.
We’re assuming the worst about small people who have given us every reason in the world to assume the best. My children love me. Your children love you. Sure they’re not perfect and they even sin against us at times. But when we’re honest, so many of the times when we respond in quick, ungracious, angry impatience, our children have been innocent of any wrong heart motive. That should matter to us. Our children’s hearts should matter to us. And sometimes when we’re quick to become angry we don’t even allow an opportunity to find out the motive of their heart.
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