Absence Makes the Heart Grow…

Posted by Barbara | 0 comments

There you are;  sitting as a family in your only-just-enough-seatbelts vehicle. Driving somewhere just longer than anyone wants to go today. And it starts. Nothing major. No hitting. No shoving. No “Dad, she’s BREATHING on me.” Just small little verbal jabs. Just little changes in tone creating a more sarcastic, biting air. No one is fighting, per se. No one is looking to be vindicated by mom. Just tense. Just nit picky, irritated eye-rolling and sighing.

What’s a mom to do?

I’ll tell you what I did today. I thought about how much time the kids spend together. All seven of them. Crammed into the van. Sharing bedrooms. Three meals a day. All the same friends. All the same activities. School together, play together, work together, sleep together. Yikes! That’s a lot of time up close and personal with the same gang!

And I thought, maybe they’d be happier and enjoy one another more if I just split them up a bit. Encourage them to go their own way and play on their own. Maybe if we could build another bedroom in the basement to spread them out a bit. Or if we bought a bigger van to allow spaces in between some of the kids. And if they were at public school, they’d all be in their own classrooms with their own teachers and their own friends.

Maybe what they need to really enjoy one another and to get along better is to just spend less time together. Maybe then they’d appreciate the time the do get to spend with each other and enjoy one another more.

Fortunately, I then shook my head and laughed at my idiocy. What they need, and what I need, is to learn how to love one another. And contrary to the old adage, absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Absence makes the heart grow absent! Or as a lady once said to me “Absence makes the heart grow fonder…of someone else!”

If brothers can’t get along with sisters, I don’t need to make sure they never have an opportunity to argue again. I need to make sure they have lots of opportunities and tools to learn compromise and reconciliation. Some day these boys of mine will need to know how to love and bear with their wives. And some day these girls of mine will need to know how to respect and submit to their husbands. They can learn that here.

If sisters can’t get along with sisters, I don’t need to make sure they never speak any words to one another, lest a harsh one comes out. I need to make sure they have lots of opportunities to practice speaking truth and kindness to one another. Some day these girls will have mothers-in-laws and female friends at their churches and homeschool groups with whom they will need to speak graciously and wholesomely. They can learn that here.

If brothers can’t get along with brothers, I don’t need to keep them separated like two Alpha Males of competing tribes. I need to make sure they have the opportunity and wisdom to discern when humility dictates that they lead or that they follow. Some day these boys will be employees or employers who need to know how to be respectable. And they will be fathers and husbands who will need to know how to be the loving head of a home. They can learn that here.

Do you see what I mean? Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. I know it is familiar, but read it with me thinking about your kids and how they relate to one another and to you:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all thing, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Did you see anywhere in there that said “Love avoids a difficult person, it avoids conflict by keeping to itself. Love only enjoys the company of ‘easy people’, and only likes those who agree with it on everything.”

No? Me neither. So how do we teach our children (and ourselves) to be patient if we are never with people who try our patience? How do we learn to be kind if we are never in a situation where we are tempted to be mean? How do we learn to not envy if we never spend time with people who succeed where we fail? How do we learn to not insist on our own way unless we spend time with people who want something else?

Why do people say, “Never pray for patience”? Because they know that the Lord needs to put you in a frustrating, waiting kind of situation for you to learn patience. So how do you learn to love? By being with sometimes-unlovable people.

Am I saying our kids should never be on their own and do their own thing? Of course not. Is sharing a bedroom more holy than having a space of your own? Of course not. However, we do ourselves, and our children, a grave injustice by constantly removing them from every conflict-ridden situation between siblings without giving them the Biblical tools to work the conflict out themselves next time.

Proverbs 18:1 says, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire”. Whoever prefers to be alone is doing so in order to get his own way. Is that what we want to teach our kids? On the other hand, Romans 12:18 teaches us, “If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.” There will be conflict in our homes, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our neighbourhoods. What do you think our response should be? Self-isolation? Separate the kids everytime? Or teach ourselves, and our children, to live at peace with one another, wherever we are able?

Lord, this is impossible for us. But we are so grateful that by your Spirit at work in us we will be able to live with each other in an understanding way. Help us to think more highly of others and to model for our children what that looks like. Thank for you for all the opportunities you give us (in the grocery check-out, in the left-hand turn lane, in the homeschool co-op) to practice loving our neighbours as ourselves. Give us the grace, Lord, to live like you, and to love like you. And grant us the wisdom, patience, and humility to teach our children to do the same.

Barbara and her husband, as they homeschool their 7 children, are finding out that no two children are alike! Between lessons and lunches, Barbara blogs at Fuel by Barbara.