Parenting Thoughts

Easter.  It truly is an incredible holiday.  We celebrate the most miraculous moment of our faith, that moment which gives us hope beyond possibility and reason.   So full of joy.   These days, it’s also full of candy.  While I shake my fists at the Easter market for commercializing another celebration of Christ, I’m divided.  In some ways I’m disgusted by the candy and Easter bunnies and the pressure to buy.  But then, it’s tradition, something to be shared and enjoyed in family.  And while it’s a tradition honoring spring and new life (Easter bunnies, eggs), the idea of “new life” is equally applicable to the Resurrection.  Even more so.  

After it’s over, though, we have LOTS of candy.  I don’t even purchase candy at Easter, but we end up with a ton. 

And my children know it.

“I want some more tandy,” she says.  Her eyes twinkle bright with the thought.  She stands in the kitchen, dressed in her pink pajamas.  Blond wisps spill over her eyes, tugged loose in her sleep.  I sip my coffee to hide my smile.

“Sweetheart, we’re not going to have any candy right now.  First, we’re going to eat breakfast.  Then later we’ll eat lunch.  If you eat your lunch, you can have a piece of candy after lunch, but not before.”  I try hard to sound firm, but I know.  I feel her desire.  It’s strong -- sugar.  It calls to me in my adulthood.  Too many mornings I reach for a leftover brownie instead of oatmeal.  Or a chocolate chip cookie.  Or a piece of Easter candy…

“But I want some more.”

“I know you want more, but candy isn’t good for your body.  It makes you tired.  It takes your energy away.”  How do I explain the evils of something with no discernable immediate effects to my three-year-old?  She can’t possibly understand.  She’s never personally experienced obesity or the constant sluggishness that sugar can induce.  In fact, she does not have the capacity at this point in her life to even comprehend such delayed consequences.  What she associates with sugar is taste, the immediacy of melting chocolate on the tongue.

How do I explain?  I can’t. 

Why?  Because she and I think differently.

“‘My thoughts are completely different from yours,’ says the LORD.  ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9

The developmental difference between parent and child is obvious.  Why then, when it comes to God, do I think I can understand it all?   I want the explanation.  I crave the explanation.  For every decision He makes.  Why, God?  Why can’t I eat more candy?  Why can’t I have more enjoyable experiences?  Why must I endure anything but lasting pleasure?  But I can’t understand the explanation any better than a three-year-old understands the limiting of candy.

“Please, I want some more,” she says again.  No, you don’t. I want to say.  You don’t understand the consequences.  I know better than you do.  Trust me.  

Trust me.

Is God always trying to tell me that?  Yes.  I know He is.  It’s only in the wake of early morning begging for candy that I hear it.  How childish I must sound to God.  Thankfully, amazingly, there’s hope.  The perfect Father rebukes me, again and again.  And I struggle to see that I can trust Him, always.  His thoughts are higher than my own.