The scary child…

“When she first started coming here, I was worried”

Words every mom wants to here when dropping their kid off at school, right? After a late morning start filled with whinning, and “I want candy, mom” –Seriously, I am about to throw away all the candy, if I have to hear about how all she wants to eat is candy-.   Maybe, that’s why my parents never took us trick or treating.

I mean seriously, It is ALL Olivia wants to eat. Then we have a melt down which leds to getting in trouble which led to another meltdown, all because of candy. Remind me next year, no cute costume, is worth it. It’s just not. 

Candy creates whinny toddlers, then there is all that extra tooth brushing due to all the extra sugar. We all know how hard it is to get a toddler to brush their teeth to begin with.

So back to my story…

We get to school (really, its daycare, she is only 2). I sign her in, she runs off to eat breakfast (she is starving from not being able to eat candy). I start up a conversation with her wonderful teacher. Seriously, amazing teachers. I ask them if Olivia is usually whinny. To which they respond no more than anyone else. It is just her age. Then they go on….

“She is just a completely different child than when she first started here. At first I was a little scared” When Olivia first started school she would scream and  cry and hit. Very uncharacteristic of her. At one point they said when they put up her chair (she liked to throw it) she got it back down and put it in its place and sat in.  Gotta give credit where credit is due. She didn’t want her chair put up so she sat in, very logical. They can’t move it, if she is sitting in it.

That’s my child. Stubborn, and independent.

While, I can look back at this conversation from this morning and laugh about those trying times. It a hard realization, that my child was that child. You know the one that no teacher wants. The teacher never said she didn’t want her. But would you look forward to having the child I just described in your class. It’s okay. I wouldn’t either.

But. It was my kid!! Fast forward to today. Olivia is happily in school, learning Spanish and going to gym class every week. She has a best friend. I have been told they are joined at the hip. She is calm, although still whinny, even more independent and stubborn.

Aren’t we all. Even as adults aren’t we all a little be whinny (about the weather, bills, life), aren’t we all independent and stubborn. Don’t we want everything to be our way. Are we much different than a 2 year old. Doesn’t seem like it does it?

Here is the amazing thing. We aren’t.

We are still children, children of God.

We run to God whinning about our problems. Telling him the way to do things. Doing the opposite of what he tells us to do. Don’t adults sound about 2 years old right now?

However..

He doesn’t yell at us for being whinny, he doesn’t take away our independence because we don’t use it correctly. He allows us to make mistakes and grow from it. He gives us GRACE. He gives us MERCY. COMPASSION. LOVE.

Don’t we give those things to our children. It amazes me how much our relationships with our children mirror our relationships with the creator.

How in reality, our children mirror us. It is crazy. So really who is the scary child here. Is it me and my disobedience to the Father. Or is it my child, who am I charged with training, and guiding her. Can the disobedient, lead the disobedient.

We can. Thanks to GRACE. Thanks to the PERFECT sacrifice. Who was perfect in my place. Perfect in my child’s place.

It’s a freeing revelation.. GRACE.