BIG PICTURE VISION

     As I sat in the Sunday morning service, I began to see dots connecting in my mothering brain, as our pastor gave the message.  He was speaking of the difference between having tunnel vision (only seeing what is right in front of us) and big picture vision (seeing beyond the immediate) in different areas of life; but I began to see how easily I used to have, and can still fall back into the trap of, tunnel vision in parenting.

     Even though my vision for parenting has increased with each year that our children have grown, I still find every once in a while that I start to wish I could go back to the earlier years with the perspective I have now.  It's not that I did things "wrong" back then (although I know I made lots of mistakes), it's just that I see more clearly now the WHY of so many parenting issues that I felt overwhelmed by then.

     In the early years it's so easy to parent primarily out of tunnel vision -- it's what is happening right in front of us...the whining child who won't relent, the crying baby who won't settle, the defiant toddler who insists on their way...these are examples of all-consuming moments, aren't they?  

     You may ask, "How can I even imagine a bigger picture when it's so hard right now?"

     But then it happens, you get ahead a little further in the journey and you realize that what you are doing now is for the purpose of the future...it makes the "no" answers, that we have to give our children, contain greater purpose than just what is happening in the stressful moment of today.

     It really boils down to Proverbs 22:6 when we're told to, "Train up a child in the way he should go, so that WHEN HE IS OLD he will not depart."  Not old -- as in 2 days older -- but old as in years later -- that, my friend, is BIG picture vision.

     IF we can grasp a glimpse of this in our parenting, it could radically transform the way we view the challenges of each day!  What if we saw the frustrations we experience on a regular basis as fresh opportunities to lay foundation stones that our child will need to function as a godly adult?

"Bring (your children) up in

the training and instruction 

of the Lord."

Ephesians 6:4