Life’s Lemonade Lesson #2

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Life’s Lemonade Lesson #1: Go out of your way to be thankful and never miss an opportunity to lift someone up.

Life’s Lemonade Lesson #2: Don’t let your kids get away with murder just because life is hard right now.

Life is hard. And sometimes it’s really hard.

Sometimes I think, as parents, we feel so guilty when life gets difficult that we allow our kids to behave badly and act out. I think we are actually doing them a great disservice when we let that happen.

The last three months in Schneiderland have been hard. My mom had her hip replaced in February. I injured my back at the same time. On Easter, my daughter had pinkeye which turned out to be an adenovirus. The entire family got it. It was BRUTAL. No sooner did we get over that then my husband got a bad case of bursitis in his knee that led to bleeding in his entire leg. The poor guy still has swelling and I go down with meningitis on OUR BIRTHDAY which was 3 days before Mother’s Day. Needless to say, we are meeting our insurance deductible early this year.

We spent 3 or 4 weeks helping my parents after her surgery. Life was far from normal. This was particularly difficult for my sweet babies who like and seem to need order. And there was some whining. Understandably so. We quickly learned that this was an amazing opportunity from God to teach our children a few things:

• Life is unpredictable. You have to be able to go with the flow when it becomes necessary.
• When people are hurt, you help. Why? Because being hurt or sick is hard enough, doing it alone is impossible. That’s why God wants us to live in community.
• It’s lonely when you are in pain. Being present with someone is an amazing and FREE gift we can give them to help them heal faster.

So when I spent 5 days in the hospital, my kids knew the drill. Life is not going to be normal for awhile, but it’s going to be alright… even if alright is a new normal. They have had a few moments, but some friendly reminders have quickly gotten them back on track.

Look, I’m not crazy nor am I unrealistic. We are all going to have our moments when stuff goes wrong. I even think it’s healthy to have an ugly cry or two along the way. What I don’t think is ok is to wallow in it. And I really don’t want to raise my little people to be wallowers. God is too big to waste our time wallowing. And people are too amazing to waste our time with them behaving badly.

Kids are stronger than we often give them credit for. Don’t waste opportunities to help them to grow even stronger and to help build their character.