A good question to ask your kids: Who ARE you??:)
Facebook was full of it. Headline News featured it. It must be a hot topic, so why not weigh in? The focus seems to be on parents struggling with kids going back to school. I wrote this a few years ago, and as I reread it, I found that I still agree with it and want to begin this new school year as a parent with the gospel way as my center:
Christian ethics is not a matter of ‘discovering who you truly are’ and then being true to that. It is a matter, as Jesus and Paul insist, of dying to self and coming alive to God, of taking up the cross, of inaugurated eschatology, of becoming in oneself not ‘what one really is’ already but ‘what one is in Christ’, a new creation, a small, walking, breathing anticipation of the promised time when the earth shall be filled with God’s glory as the waters cover the sea.”
N.T. Wright, The Bible and Tomorrow
Wright points out that our culture often tells us to ‘look inside’ to find that ‘inner creativity’ to make an impact in the world. Thank God, a M.O.M.’s core story tells me something different – it’s not from within me but from without that the power for transformation comes and has come. I don’t have to look for the perfect parenting program or school them in the latest educational approach or use the correct disciplinary method to grow children God’s way. It is not entirely up to me to do it right. I can admit that I’m weak, broken, mean and confused. I can do all of this because of the gospel story which tells me that resurrection has changed me and will change me. On dark days, the power for hope comes from remembering resurrection – Christ was raised from the dead, and in that moment, he made me a new creation. And not only that, but it is through Christ’s being raised to life that my kids will be raised – TO LIFE!
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