He Can Only Do So Much

A dear friend related the story of when her 3 year old locked herself in her bedroom (again.) Because the girl had locked herself in the bedroom before the mother knew that she could figure out the door and get herself out. But for some reason the girl began to panic and the mother heard her screaming "Help Me!!" and running around the room. My friend tried talking her through the steps and even tried to tell her to "not worry" mommy was there and would help her get out. The girl in her chaos, never heard the counsel and wasn't conforted by her mother. The mother stood on the outside of that door wishing that her daughter would calm down enough to hear her, trust her enough to do what she said, and know that no matter what her mother was going to get her out of there.

Just because we have a piece...

doesn't mean we understand the whole.

Kirtlan said, “Jesus is like a sun, huh? He’s glowy like a sun.” With which I agreed and praised him for his insight. He continued, “If its dark and we’re scared we should ask for Jesus to come, cause he’s got light.” I found this statement most symbolic. “He keeps a little sun in his pocket or his bag, so he’s glowy, huh?” Ah, that’s more like the child that I know.

Independence

My son went through an extremely independent stage. He often told me, “no dad, I do it myself”. Often I really enjoyed letting him try and do things for himself. I especially enjoyed it when he succeeded. However, there were some tasks that really wanted to do that he was not yet capable of doing. Like he would love to climb into his carseat and cry out “me do it”. He would do okay. He could sometimes buckle one of the two safety buckles, though he wouldn’t thread his arms through the straps. He would be a little upset when I interfered, but it was just too important to let slide. Sometimes he would scream “ME DO IT”. Sometimes he wouldn’t close the door all the way, and I would do it again. He would protest and that was okay. I knew what was more important.

You Hurt Yourself

When my boy was only a few days old I was thinking a lot about how my heavenly Father felt about me. I was extremely overwhelmed with the idea of teaching this little soul. I remember one day while just watching over him, entranced. He would wiggle and flail his arms excitedly. Of course he didn’t have much control of his little limbs. On this occasion, he flailed until he hit himself in the face. He then looked up at me with an accusatory face as if to say, “Why did you just hit me? I’m such an innocent child.” And then began to cry loudly. I wondered how many times we hurt ourselves then look to our Father and ask Him why He did that to us.

WHEN YOU WALK IN DIRTY PLACES

I open the door and let Kirtlan climb into his own seat while I loaded our one year old into the car. Kirtlan asked, “Daddy what happened to my shoes?” I looked back and they were all muddy. “What happened to my shoes?” I said that they got dirty. He asked why. I said, when you walk in dirty places you get dirty. He replied. "Oh."

What is Parables from Parenthood?

We believe that we gain a better insight into our relationship with our Father in Heaven as we parent his children on earth.
There are many valuable things to be learned if we take the time to learn them.