Orange Parents

By Sarah Anderson

More often than I’d like, I feel like a complete parenting failure. The other night while my three year old was running around, I heard him yell to no one in particular, “You guys are stressing me out!” It was not my proudest mom moment. He wasn’t really stressed out. He had just heard me say it enough, that he learned to repeat it himself. It was like a blow to the gut—a revealing reflection of the messages I had unintentionally been sending. Nights like that one remind me that as hard as I am trying to mask my shortcomings, those pesky faults are more evident than I thought.

I know what I am supposed to do. I know the respectable response and the tempered reaction in most situations. But I don’t always do it. In fact I consistently don’t do it enough that my kids are picking up on the “me” I thought I was doing a fairly good job reforming—or at least keeping under wraps. It’s humbling. It’s disheartening. It’s discouraging when I consider the task given to raise these little ones.

The story of freed slaves from the book of Exodus features some other flawed parents. They were a people called out by Moses and given a set of commandments. But they had a tendency to complain. Loudly. Consistently. They weren’t setting prime examples for the generation behind them. And to their whining and protesting, God makes Himself heard. To the former slaves, He says, “You won’t ever see the land I promised would be yours. You won’t ever know true freedom. Your kids will see it, but you won’t.”

Yet, when God gave Moses the commandments, He included this one: honor your father and mother—including the ones who got it so wrong.

Which makes me wonder. How did the younger generation of slaves honor their obstinate and disobedient elders? What interactions took place in the years between when the parents faced the repercussions of their disobedience and when the kids took the land their parents weren’t allowed to enter? I don’t know if this is true, but I wonder if there was some confession along the way. Admittance. Acknowledgement. I wonder if there were a lot of conversations that started with, “We got it wrong, but you don’t have to.” Whatever transpired in those years of wandering affected the children of faulty parents. In a good way. They learned something. And then they corrected their course. They took the land their parents missed.

Owning up to where I got it wrong, allowing my kids glimpses into my work in progress, means I can get something right.

In other words, if I want to give my kids something to honor, I don’t need to become a perfect parent but a repentant one.

If my son bears the baggage I haven’t successfully dealt with myself—speaking the language I often make a script for my life—all is not lost. There is still hope if I can assure him there is a better way to live. He may not see perfection, but he can catch a glimpse of repentance and learn from my mistakes.

Our kids may not honor us because of how often we get it right. But what if they honored us because of how often we admit we get it wrong?

What if we parented as though our legacy lasts longer than we do—and consists of more than just our successes, but the posture of hearts?

And who knows, if we learn to do this, we may find freedom—our kids may find freedom—from the burden of perfection none of us were ever meant to bear. And our kids can engage a future we could have only dreamed for ourselves.

Sarah Anderson writes for the XP3 student curriculum at Orange. She is married to Rodney Anderson and is mom to two beautiful bouncy boys, Asher and Pace.

By Sarah Anderson

This past Friday, April 12, 2013, Brennan Manning, someone many would consider a giant of the faith, passed away.

I first came across Brennan Manning’s writing in high school. I checked out a book of his from the church library, because it had the word “ragamuffin” in the title—a word I’d never heard of, and an author I’d never heard of. On the way out, I ran into our pastor who asked what I had decided on. “The Ragamuffin Gospel, by Brennan Manning,” I answered. “Ah,” he nodded with—how I remember it—a bit of a twinkle in his eye. “Some would consider him a bit of a heretic.” He smiled, and went on his way. And me? I was more intrigued than ever.

I never returned The Ragamuffin Gospel to my church library. (In fact, I probably owe them a good bit of money from that unreturned book) But I couldn’t bear to let it go. It was the first book that once I finished, I immediately started reading all over again.

I couldn’t get enough.

For me, Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel is a stone of remembrance, marking a time when God showed Himself to me in a way I never anticipated but so badly needed. Manning’s vulnerable words drew an image of God that haunted me. Pulled me in. Allowed me to fall in love with my Heavenly Father, making me believe like nothing else had before, that not only did this God love me back—He may actually like me.

Turns out, the word “ragamuffin” means “a ragged unkempt person”—a word Brennan used to describe the human condition—himself included. He wrote of the “unkemptness” of us all, and the extravagant, boundless grace that’s sought us, found us, taken hold of us—the hopeful absurdity of it all. It was a breath of fresh air—and a game changer. If this was true, if God could love us exactly as we are, no conditions, He was indeed a safe place to land. And so I landed. There. Believing this extraordinary certainty

These days, as a parent, Brennan’s insistent words come to mind often—remembering the way my young faith hinged on the confidence that this God existed. Every child deserves the chance to be introduced to this God. A God who loves them. Accepts them. Likes them. A God whose pursuit of them isn’t dependent on good behavior, polished manners or complete understanding. A God who wants nothing more than to meet them and tell them—again, and again, again, “You are fine. And you are mine—just the way you are.” Every child warrants this. And no one is in a better position to make this introduction than a parent.

As a mom, I think if I can get my boys to get that, to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are loved and they are accepted, then I consider mine a job well done. And so on most days, teaching that, and just that, is my aim.

You could say, thanks to Brennan Manning, I’m attempting to raise a couple of ragamuffins—kids who won’t have it all together—and know that’s okay. But who also know there is no greater gift than grace, and no greater God than the one who offers it without requiring a thing in return. And if my kids—our kids— can get that, then they too, with all their unkemptness, brokenness and raggedness can safely and permanently land in the beautiful, unfaltering and grace-full arms of their Heavenly Father.

Thank you, Brennan. Well done.

Sarah Anderson writes for the XP3 student curriculum at Orange. She is married to Rodney Anderson and is mom to two beautiful bouncy boys, Asher and Pace.

By Sarah Anderson

My husband often tells me “the happiest and healthiest people are those whose expectations meet reality.” I frequently need reminding of this. I live in expectation—anticipation—playing things out in my head of how I would like them to unfold. The problem is, as you might imagine, the more expectations I have, the more likely I am to be disappointed when they aren’t met. Thinking through how I would like things to be is far from a guarantee of how they will actually happen.

There may be no other realm in life where expectation and reality land in such vastly different places than raising children. Anyone who thought they knew how to parent before having kids will quickly retract every adamantly vocalized expectation once they actually become a parent.

Still, imagining the future is a hard habit to break. Last Easter, I had expectations which seemed harmless enough. My husband had come across an egg dying method involving silk ties and twine.

Though craftiness deficient, even this seemed simple enough. I imagined our experiment unfolding like the pictures online promised. We included my two-year-old in the process, hyping it up, promising beautiful eggs when we were finished and he waited patiently for the great unveiling.

But when we unwrapped the first egg we were—disappointed. It was not some psychedelic paisley print. It looked exactly like it did when we first put it in the vinegar. Considering my son came from my gene pool and was in the throes of the terrible twos, I did not expect this rather anti-climactic reveal to go well.

But when we took a deep breath and turned to Asher to navigate his unmet expectations he simply stared wide-eyed at the egg. “Look!” he whispered in unabashed astonishment, “It’s a white one!”

The clash between expectations and reality start to get to me, until I take a cue from a toddler who offers more wisdom than I give him credit for. Unwrapping a perfectly white egg, I observe my little boy and his effortless expression of wonder. It was an Easter weekend miracle—at least to an innocent toddler. To me, these white eggs were a failure.

To him, they were perfection.

Parenting provides an abundance of moments where things look so much better, smoother, and easier in our heads than how they actually transpire.

It starts with the day you bring your baby home from the hospital. But the assault of “this isn’t really how I imagined it going” doesn’t end there. Nearly every moment that follows potentially involves a lot more frustration and a lot less ease than we might prefer.

Which leads me to believe—by way of a two-year old’s astuteness—that maybe disappointment isn’t inevitable when expectations fall flat. Maybe discontentment doesn’t have to be the end when the means are fumbled.

Maybe, if we can take our eyes off the “should haves” and “if onlys”,  we just might be left with a sense of wonder—even if, and especially when, things are nothing like we thought they would be. Or, in these wise words I recently read, maybe what we consider the detour is actually the road.

My kids are teaching me—whether I like it or not—that when I let go of my tightly held plans, I am more free to see the world as they do.

Magical.

Enchanting.

An extended invitation to be present, thankful and captivated by the gift of what we do have, instead of lamenting what isn’t.

So this Easter, while trying to

get out the door to church,
smooth dresses,
wipe dirty mouths,
break up arguments and
appear as cool, calm and collected as you wish you felt,
take a moment to enjoy the white eggs in your life.

Your expectations may not be met, but you may just find yourself happier and healthier than if they had been.

Sarah Anderson writes for the XP3 student curriculum at Orange. She is married to Rodney Anderson and is mom to two beautiful bouncy boys, Asher and Pace.