Knots

My bad mothering actually led to this post. Last night, as we were coming home from somewhere, my oldest daughter said, “Mom, my hair feels so smooth.”

I said, “That is what happens when you brush it every day.”

She then said, “Sometimes when I have knots in my hair it feels like I have a cushion to lay my head on, but with smooth hair it doesn’t feel that way.”

I had to laugh. She is nine and would rather have her knotted cushion at times than the pain of a good hair brushing, and there are days I would rather her have knots than have to endure the whining and crying that go along with detangling her very long, ballerina hair. I don’t like to inflict pain on my children on a daily basis, but without the daily pain, the knots that build up get larger and harder to deal with, leading to a much greater and deeper every few days pain.

I got to thinking about my daughters hair and her knots. It is hard to be consistent in parenting, sometimes it feels easier, more merciful to let something go…to let some behavior go unaddressed so I don’t have to hear the whining. I have found out though that the avoidance of the misbehavior, okay let’s just call it what it is, sin, leads to even greater and deeper pain in the long run.

If I let my son speak to me in a disrespectful manner one time, he will continue that behavior (sin/bad-habits are much easier to make than good ones are) until I stop him. It will be a much greater struggle to stop him six times later, than had I done it the first time around. Plus, his disrespect left unchecked always causes a counter disrespect in me. I respond back to him in sarcasm, which is sin, and a tit for tat relationship begins instead of a parent-child healthy relationship.

Our knots get bigger, become comfortable cushions in our interaction with one another, and we don’t want to deal with the pain it will take to brush through them, that is until we know someone else we want to impress is watching. When our appearance becomes a concern, we tend to try to work though our knots in order to make ourselves presentable.

So, when I get to the point that the neighbors down the street can hear me yelling back and forth with my son out our open window, I realize that others are watching and I better become the parent instead of the adolescent kid trading barbs with my 11 year old. Why isn’t it enough to know that I should behave as the parent, or even more importantly know that I want to behave in a way that will reveal Christ to my son, frustrates me to no end. We sure complain a lot about peer pressure, but we must need it because it is defiantly a tool that God has set up to bring about change in our lives. It gives us that audience we need to impress, and it helps us brush out the knots we have allowed to become our comfortable cushion in life.

The next time you are feeling like you just don’t want to brush the knots out, remember that the more they build up the bigger they get, and the more painful they are to brush out down the road. Consistent care of our kid's hearts may not be easy, but brushing out the knots in their attitudes will smooth out their lives.