I’m Blessed

I have sung the song Jesus Loves Me no less than 278,224 times in the last 3 months or so.  It is Ingrid’s favorite song and she will not got to bed without me singing it to her.  Sometimes when she climbs out of her crib and I have to bring her back, she will sit there and scream until I sing it again, even if I sang it to her 15 minutes earlier.

“Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus!!!!!”  She cries out in desperation.  “Biiiiiiiiibbbbbblllllle!!!!!!!”

She calls it the “Jesus-Bible Song.”

The whole situation is just aching to be an illustration.

I have always been known in this household as somewhat of a “bedtime Nazi.”  I’m a big fan of bedtime. I love my children, but really.  I do need breaks.

It’s the time of day where resting and kid-free moments are within sight, and I just have to get them there.  Something happens when your kids get older, though.  That precious night time silence starts slipping away.  I feel as Silje and David are getting older that we are in a shift in our family.  The big kids stay up longer and there is reading and games, and it just all gets pushed back later.  I’m slowly realizing that bedtimes don’t just revolve around me and my free time.

With my older kids, I would have passed off Ingrid’s screaming for more songs as toddler manipulation and let her figure it out, or at the very least be stern with her.  Now, 5 kids in, my mind just whirls with thoughts on this.

First, it’s amazing how easily she is calmed.  I just have to sing a song.  Believe me, I’ve had the child who would scream no matter what you do.  They just cry and cry and cry.  Not her.  She just wants to hear the song again and again about how Jesus loves her.

It’s just so easy.  She is not asking me for the world.

Maybe it is manipulation.  Probably.  I have come to a place in parenting where I am fully aware that they think they are manipulating me, and I just don’t care.

My kids have learned this is a weak spot with me.  They can get me to stop anything and talk about Jesus.

I’ve done that on purpose.  That’s my choice.  I’ve decided awhile back that these conversations would take priority…

…even if they’re only two years old.

I’ll sing to them about how Jesus loves them until I am blue in the face.  Not because I want to be in her room that long, or I just can’t stand being away from her either, or I think it’s wrong for my child to feel anything sad ever, and certainly not because I’m trying to elongate bedtime.  I’m so tired at that time of day, and my patience is thin.

I haven’t gained any new energy.  I’ve just gained perspective.  

I’ve learned a few things in the last nearly 11 years:

• It’s fast.  This whole parenting thing is fast.  I used to agonize how to get my kids to sleep, and read books, and try to survive a period that lasted around a year or two per kid.  Now, I understand that’s a long time for me to be sleep deprived but as my oldest is getting crazy old (she turns 11 next month) I just realize more and more how fast this all is.  I don’t rush them to bed like I used to.  I push, but not rush.  Taking moments to just be with them, even after bedtime isn’t killing me anymore.  I am finding joy in this season.  It’s only taken me a decade or so to get here.

 

• So she needs another song.  So what?  I used to think that giving into my toddler was the defining moment for me as a parent.  Might as well familiarize myself with dealing with drug-addicted teens, and teen pregnancies after that.  Right?  Wrong.  How I draw the line, discipline, yell, whatever, and enforce the rules does not define me as a parent.  At least I hope not.

 

I don’t want to leave a legacy of rules for my kids.  Faith is not about rule-keeping.  I want to leave a legacy of grace, compassion, character, forgiveness, and most of all, Christ, being constantly on my lips.

Because I don’t think there is one parent on this earth who succeeded in making their children perfect…because there are not perfect people.  I can teach them about honor and character, and what to do with their sin, and where to bring it, and where they can find healing.  But I do not have the powers to make them sinless.

So I’ll sing Jesus Loves Me 100 times a night.  Because I get to.  No one else in the world has this privilege.  My daughter wants me to tell her more about how Jesus loves her, and that’s all she wants bouncing around in her brain as she falls asleep.  It takes forever.  But it’s so fast.

If anything I want my kids know by rote that even when they are weak, God is strong.  I want them depending on that strength.  Bedtime is important, but I’m realizing other things may be more important.

I may be trying to model for them grace, and compassion.  They are modeling for me desperation, and need.  I want to call out for more Jesus as easily as they do.  They remind me of who I am.  Just like memorizing and meditating on a verse of the Bible over and over again, each round discovering new layers of understanding, so it has been with this song.  I have spent more time these last few months meditating on the words of this song by default, than anything else.

And that?  It’s been a blessing.