October 26th

Comfort My People

            “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

                A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

                A voice says, “Cry out!”
            And I said, “What shall I cry?”
            All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.  Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”

Isaiah 40:1-9

            There are times where I need to speak tenderly to the ones I love because they are on edge.  It could be that they had a rough day at school.  It could be that they are over-tired and already ready to explode.  It could be that I was harsh with them earlier and they are listening closely for whether I am still disappointed or mad at them.  It could be that they have worked themselves to exhaustion today and have no emotional reserves left with which to engage in our normal verbal sparring.

            Math.  Specifically elementary school math.  Specifically specifically 3^rd and 4^th grade elementary school math.  I would get home from a long day of work and start on math homework with my son.  The curriculum that his school was using was incredibly invested in mental flexibility and wanted to give their students lots of different ways to solve problems and lots of different ways to think about the subject.  My son just needed a consistent procedure to be able to follow that would allow him to get the right answers over and over again.

            We would lie on our stomachs on the floor of his room since we had read that this helped people with sensory issues concentrate.  He would do a math problem…wrong.  I would go through the problem with him and show him how to do it.  Then he would do the next problem…wrong, usually in a different way.  I would say that we needed to fix it and he would get upset.  He hated doing things twice.  So we would go over how to do the problem.  He would do the third problem…wrong, often the same mistake that he made in problem 1.  We tried visual aids.  We tried doing each step together.  We tried flash cards.  We tried note taking.  We tried working backwards.  And every night we spent nearly 2 hours getting a single 3^rd grade math sheet done and ending with a frustrated father and a crying son and a miserable experience.

            Those nights I would go in to say good night to the boy and I would be intentionally tender and gentle.  He needed to hear affirmation.  He needed to hear love.  He needed to know that his worth to me was not wrapped up in our math struggles.  I needed to know those things as well.  He needed comfort and rest and he would not sleep if he thought that I was unhappy with him.

            Our feelings towards our children carry a lot of weight.  A lot of weight.  We may know that we love them, but they can often miss it because we are so concerned about other things like being on time and how your hair is combed and how many math questions you got wrong.  Sometimes we just have to tell the truth in a soft voice with gentle words and lots of affection.  There are times to speak with authority and strength and command; then there are times where the love of the Father need to be at the forefront.  God spoke that way in Isaiah 40…I spoke that way after math lessons…may we be wise in when to speak with tenderness.    

A moment to reflect:

When is an important time to speak tenderly with your child?  What is the best way to do that?