On Doing Hard Things for Our Kids

A few weeks ago, I needed to take my son in to have a couple of teeth extracted.

Can I just say this is not my favorite mom-job?

I held his hand during the injections, whispered “breathe” through his anxiety.

I remembered my own extractions when I was around his age, and other dental memories which would cause my hands to shake years after. So even getting in the car to take my son demanded some discipline.

When Parenting = Doing Hard Things

Like any of us, I’ve had my share of these moments throughout parenting.

Driving up to Denver for scans to see if my son had cancer. Purchasing the plane tickets for our family’s move back from Africa. Enduring tough conversations with my disenfranchised teenagers in a local Starbucks, swallowing my urge to cry.

Sometimes, my mental image is that of Abraham asking Isaac to carry the wood up the mountain…that Abraham planned to sacrifice Isaac upon. Is it some form of cruelty? I wondered more than once about this story.

But here is what I know.

That wood on that son’s back was a forerunner of another man centuries later, bending beneath the wood to be used for his own sacrifice. In fact, that wood was so heavy and the man so depleted, he collapsed beneath its weight.

God, too, is used to doing hard things for his kids. Because love is brave. It overcomes for the sake of the beloved.

And there’s this: That man not only carried his own wood, he grew it from the ground. God watched as men mined and forged iron into spikes that would plunge into his Son’s wrists and feet, or literally into his Son’s heart. He was there the day some Romans hatched the idea of crucifying criminals.

Not just crosses

But he also shaped the cave that would house Jesus’ body–and the stone that would both seal and unseal his tomb. He grew the garden around the tomb.

God created the means for both his own death and resurrection.

I mean, he also pressed seeds into earth to grow the trees–and their arboreal parents and ancestors–for the boat Jesus would sleep on, then rise from to calm gusts and waves from the weather patterns God had swirled together. He watched as the boat-builders learned and honed their trade.

I’ve learned what I share in this post about walking through a tough season for my son: That God, in orchestrating our suffering, ordains his own.

But he also ordains our resurrection and healing. And triumphs with us there.

Getting into the car together after my son’s procedures, I knew he didn’t just have the makings of a healthier mouth. Like a chick pushing through a shell, he had fledgling muscles he’d developed by doing hard things. 

Good people, and good parents, can do that.  And a good God does, too.

Lord, we pray we never find ourselves without hope, without a glimpse of the empty tomb each time we happen upon a cross. Help us begin our daily journey expecting both crosses and empty tombs and rejoicing when we encounter either because we know you are with us.

– Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals 

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