As members of a community devoted to growing Christians, I hope we don’t need to be reminded about turning our hearts towards our children whether they are biological, adopted, or spiritual. But actually, there are times when I do need to repent, to turn my heart away from what is distracting me, and to turn it towards my children.
Today, we honor the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, a twelfth-century Benedictine abbess who was not elevated to sainthood until 2012. She was a prolific writer and composer, leaving us dozens of songs and poems, and nine books, including works on medicine and pharmacology.
Several years ago, Jen Hatmaker’s Worst End of School Year Mom Ever made the rounds, describing the desperate limp toward the finish line that many parents experience. More recently, the Holderness family produced a video about “Maycember,” illustrating the feeling that parents have at this time of year – just as busy as Christmas, without the lights and the peppy music.
I’m not quite sure when eating as a family of six turned into a contact sport, but I work to convince my daughters to drop the mob mentality each evening. Elbows are thrown, insults may be hurled, and by the end, someone is crying.Usually, it’s not me.
‘They forgot to bring Joseph!’ I frantically whispered to one of the ushers last Christmas Eve
I’ve been tempted in the past to say that I’ve been tricked into thinking that I’m a good parent because I have easy children. I say “tempted” because the last time I sat down to write something about that, I was in the ER that night with a kid who needed stitches in his head after an unfortunate encounter with the sideboard in our dining room.
During a women’s bible study in which I recently took part, we were given the simple task of inserting our names into a certain key verse, John 3:16.
Today, we remember Absalom Jones, who was born into a world that didn’t see him deserving of love; a world that didn’t see him or his worth. Absalom Jones was born a slave in Delaware in 1746.
I know that it is the season of Advent, but Christmas is on my heart and mind. It’s hard to avoid, since, in the words of fictional rock-n-roll legend Billy Mack, “Christmas is all around.” Christmas is on tv, in stores, in our email boxes, and of course, we’re inundated with holiday musical classics.
