A humorous look at one of the purposes of parenthood...

Children Kill Us

by Mardy Freeman

So death works in us, but life in you.  Paul, the Apostle, to his children, the Corinthians. 2 Cor 4:12

One winter my husband, father of seven, man with patience of steel, walked into the living room and found one of our sons moving logs around in the fireplace with a huge set of tongs in a vain attempt at getting a fire going. Seizing on this opportune moment to teach his son a practical skill, he got down on all fours and began to blow on the fire. This was too much for our son, who thought, "I think I'll just grab dad around the neck with these neat tongs!"
But he had forgotten that the tongs had just been in the fire.

Bill come shooting up at lightening speed, having missed cracking his head on the mantle by an inch. And as I watched in amazement, he immediately grabbed his neck (his own neck) and began saying things like, "It's alright, son," and, "Yes, I know you didn't realize..."

I cringed. I knew that I would probably have grabbed our son's neck, and said something like, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING -- TRYING TO KILL ME?!"

And I would have meant it.

Because I do think that our children are trying to kill us. They do not know it. They cannot. But moment by moment, day by day, they help put to death our flesh. To the things we choose to see (or not see), to the places we choose to go (or not go), to the words we choose to say (or not say). To the natural response of the flesh. New perspective comes in the light of parenthood. New meaning to the term, death to the flesh.

I die daily.  1 Cor 15:31b

Bill went to the office for a week with three-inch gauze bandages sticking out of his dress collar like he had just had neck-surgery.

And then there was the time he brought his clothes home from a week-long business trip in a hotel laundry sack and placed it in the laundry room -- near the garbage can. I still remember his frozen, cement-like smile when someone fessed up to carrying them out to the street for the garbage truck. "It's (pause) all (pause) right. (Pause) They're just (breathe) things (breathe), right?" To this day neither of us can remember who it was, which is probably some sort of parental memory-block installed for child-survival.

I am thankful for Bill's phlegmatic composure and easy-going personality. I know that part of his composure is built-in; God just made him that way. But part of his restraint is due to a decision to die to the flesh. From Bill I am learning how one gracefully dies. It is something all parents must do. Die to the many wants and desires we left behind when we became parents. To the plans and decisions that no longer effect only ourselves. To the many responses we make differently because we are now responsible for the training and nurture of another human being. To the weak, we become as weak, that we might gain the weak. Death. To the flesh.

Since we are Christians, it is actually the Lord Jesus Christ for whom we live -- and die. For parents, it is often a mess-making, pain-causing child for whom we must die to the flesh. Did not the Apostle Paul mean as much when he said of his children, the weak Corinthians, "So death works in us, but life in you?"  Paul had liberty, but chose limitation. He chose death, so his children (of the Spirit) could have life.

Bill teaches our children by example what I still have trouble getting across in a parental lecture. He is choosing to die to the flesh.  He says it is either die -- or his children will kill him.  I wonder if Paul would have said the same thing.

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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)