Being a mother is a very emotional journey. In my experience, it is made even more emotional and tumultuous by the many highly-charged opinions fired from all directions regarding pretty much every aspect of parenting. We mamas have tremendous power to hurt each other when we fling our emotional baggage at each other.
Don't get me wrong, I believe absolutely in standing up for the truth. What I'm coming to realise is how careful I need to be in defining something as right. Do my beliefs stand up to being tested against the Word of God? Am I giving unsolicited advice from my own overactive brain, or is it grounded in Truth? Yeah, that's right, truth with a capital 'T'.
Let me give an example: I am against immunisation. Why? I believe that trusting the inadequate (immunisations are not guaranteed 100% effective) defenses against disease, manufactured by inadequate human beings, is expressing a lack of faith in God and His supreme design. Hang on, what does the bible say? "Thou shalt not immunise thy children"? Nope. "Thou shalt completely trust in God to heal or prevent every illness or injury without outside intervention"? Nope. I'm still against immunisation, so what's my conclusion?
My conclusion is this: if someone wants my opinion on immunisation, I will give it - VERY carefully and gently (at least, I'll try - after all, I'm not going to get it right every time). If it comes to disagreement, I may challenge other people's views if it is appropriate. If it gets emotional, that's where I'll stand down. That seems like a pretty simple formula, it's the implementation that will be the challenge.
I could give lots of other examples, but I won't. It's so easy for me to hop up on my soapbox and expound on, well, just about anything really, but I really think it's important to stop and think. Oftentimes I'm fuelled by pride. I want to prove without any shadow of a doubt that what I'M doing with MY children is right. Well, here's a wake-up call - it is a 100% guarantee that I'm doing a whole bunch of things WRONG because I'm human, not God!
So here's my plan: before I launch into lecture #3856 on The Correct Method of Parenting, I'm going to ask myself, "Is this God's Truth, or is it my truth?" And then, I'm either going to stand up for the Truth, or I'm going to stand down.
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