Why is it so much easier to have amazing perspective when we are on the outside looking in? When we're in church and my son starts to act up or my two year old screams or stomps his feet loud enough for the church in the next county to hear, I immediately tense up and usher the offending child into the cry room or hallway. But when another family's child is acting up or being unusually loud I smile sweetly and chuckle to myself. For the mamas and little ones in other families I have all the patience and compassion, but my own children are often met with the Angry Green Dragon Mommy.
Angry Green Dragon Mommy, or AGDM, looks like mommy, but doesn't act like the mommy I am aspiring to be inside my mommy heart. I stiffen or scowl or lower my voice in disapproval. I am acutely aware of the families with children who remain silent and standing throughout the whole church service and I imagine I'm the only one with the out of control children. That's mistake number one. I'm not alone! YAY! Just from the responses today on my status I saw clearly I am not alone. Some of my mommy veterans, including my own mommy, were the ones chuckling and giving my a compassionate (cyber)smile.
Thankfully AGDM doesn't stay around for long, though long enough to perhaps singe some feelings and burn some lumber from the relational bridges we've been building. AGDM doesn't want to pray or seek wise counsel, AGDM wants to use strength and volume to make the "villagers" do what she wants before slinking back into her cave.
In C.S. Lewis' book Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a young obnoxious boy, Eustace Scrubb, became a dragon and hated it terribly. The transformation caused him to see how ugly he was on the inside. He tried to remove layer after layer of his dragon covering, but each time he shed one layer he saw that another layer was waiting just under the last. In desperation he allowed Aslan to use his sharp claws to cut through, ALL THE WAY THROUGH, to the little boy underneath all those scales. Jesus wants to do that for all dragons whether that dragon is an angry, hurting, defiant child, a spoiled adult or tired and frustrated mom. He wants to cut through the layers of this AGDM to reveal the mommy He made me to be.
I may have printed this prayer before, but I find it helpful when this mama is fighting that ugly AGDM!
Dearest Lord Jesus, show me how to be a loving mother to my children. You know the desire of my heart is to mother my children in a way that will draw them to You. Forgive my shortcomings and help me not to sink into despair, but to rise up in faith with the knowledge that Your holy power is strong enough to sustain me and guide me to be the mother my children need. Help me to be slow to speak, quick to listen and quick to forgive my children of their faults. Grant me Your vision for my children that I may know how to train, encourage and pray for them. For you are holy now and unto ages of ages. Amen.
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