Choices and Consequences

From other blog - (June, 2011)

Growing up is so hard.  Disciplining your children is hard, too.  I think it's worse when they get older.  When they are little, you can "make" them go to bed, go to their rooms, spank them if you do that, etc.  When they get older and make bad decisions, the trickle down effect of those decisions is painful, at best, for both child and parent.

My son has made some bad decisions in the last few weeks.  The trouble is he is a good liar.  I am a good lie detector, but he fools even me.  I don't really worry when my kids who are bad liars tell lies because I know they will be found out.  However, the good liar has his suave ways of skirting around things... for a time.

Unfortunately, the consequences of one bad decision, or even two, can harm future privileges.  You would think that he would know this!  Tonight, he had a crying meltdown.  The horrible thing was all I could do was stand there and snicker (I know; I'm a terrible mother!), really just laugh in disbelief, that he was so upset at the consequences of his behavior, like we would trust him so soon after the last incident (two days ago).

I feel bad for them, you know?  I remember being young, making stupid decisions and getting caught.  I remember I received no mercy from my parents, but I do give (sometimes a heaping mound) much grace to my kids.  I know they think I'm mean, maybe that I don't remember what it was like growing up.  The thing I try to tell them is that I DO remember growing up.  Yes, some of the things I did were so ridiculous, as I was a terrible liar, but they don't seem to be as serious as what is going on in the world with our children today.

For instance, we didn't have cell phones back then.  In fact, we were only allowed rotary phones in our small town.  So, my parents placed a push button phone in my room.  I could not dial out, but I could talk on it.  Didn't really help much when I was trying to make late night phone calls and got caught in the kitchen dialing on the gold rotary phone!

I also never cut classes at school.  We lived two blocks from the school, and there was no place to go.  I knew my mom would have found out, and I would have been in severe trouble.

But when it came right down to it, I did the wrong things over and over again.  Sometimes I was caught, and sometimes I wasn't.  I think maybe they just picked their battles or maybe the situation was too volatile.  I don't really know.  What I do know is that being a parent is just so difficult at times.  There are sometimes that I just want to say, "Well, okay, we'll let you off of your grounding, just this once..." But we have been burned before, in fact, just recently, by that, and I doubt that will happen again.

I told him earlier that this should be a lesson that things that seem to be pleasurable but are the wrong things to do will turn around and bite you in the behind.  Then, you are stuck with the consequences of what you have done.  And sometimes the people you care about, your friends and family, will also have to deal with the consequences... like you not getting to fly on a plane to see your friend.  A trip that you have been waiting for since last summer.  And your friend is very angry right now because he sees that it wasn't important enough for you to be good.

Things like that.

I wish that we could just take pain away from them at times, but this, unfortunately, is learning 101.  Not fun, but necessary in the lessons of maturity, responsibility and life.

The Goodness of God - Assurance of Purpose in the Midst of Suffering

I was very interested in this book by Randy Alcorn when I first saw it listed as one I could read for review.  Every single person in the world has this question, "Why do bad things happen?" And I wanted to find out what this author had to say about the subject.
Personally, I thought the beginning of the book was very good.  Randy Alcorn talked about where evil and suffering comes from.  He gave Biblical answers to the questions of where the pain began, what our choices are, and who causes natural disasters. He still had me interested when I began reading the second chapter, but if I am honest, I will tell you that he totally lost my interest somewhere around the fourth chapter. 
While his arguments were Biblically and intellectually based, I don't really feel that this book reaches down to those people who are seriously suffering through a situation.
If I was not a Christian, I do not think that I would have read this book past the first couple of chapters because it would not have been what I was looking for.
But, because I am a Christian and I had a task at hand, I continued.  I had to wait a couple of days, though, to continue past the middle of the book.  When I finished it today, I thought the last few chapters were good again.
I think Chapter 11 is my favorite... it's called What We Can Do.  Really, the first suggestion is to "become a student of God's Word."  I think that is possibly my favorite line of the whole book.  To know God, to really know Him, we absolutely have to read the Bible.  He is the Word.  The Word is Him.
If anyone is looking for some grand answer as to why suffering occurs, however, I would not recommend this book.  It is more intellectual than practical, in my opinion.  When people are looking for answers, they want to feel like the books they read will reach them in a place that makes sense and appeals to their brokenness.  The Bible is good for that.
I don't believe this book will give you the answers you are looking for in the midst of suffering.
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.