I have thought about this a lot over the years. As I have watched my girls grow and change, I noticed that my emotions were tied most of the time to their happiness. If they were unhappy then I felt like I needed to fix something or do something. Any time they were sad or mad or upset I interpreted that to mean they were unhappy. Even if they were struggling because of the consequences of their own actions, I would put the label of unhappy on them because they were not smiling and compliant.
The world tells us "Don't worry... be happy!". The definition of happiness is: a state of well-being and contentment; a pleasurable or satisfying experience. So therefore, anything that caused me or my children to feel anything but a state of well-being made us unhappy. And that was not good, right?
I think that I thought that if my girls were not happy then I was doing something wrong. Or, if I was not happy then I must not be doing something right. I was confusing the feeling of happiness with the joy that comes from the Lord.
If you have daughters then you know all about girl drama. It is always looming around the corner. As my girls got old enough to be influenced on a daily basis by peers, I had to shift my thinking about how to parent them. I would pray for their situations and for the person who was making them unhappy. I would talk to them about how to be the bigger person and to love the unloveable. I would give them such good advice about how to handle the situation and how to feel better when they were hurting. As I stood before them, offering my prayers and advice, God gently reminded me of His plan. Because I was so busy trying to keep them happy, I was in the way of Him making them holy.
I realized that doing all the right things and saying all the right things wasn't teaching them who God really was. He wanted them to experience Him for themselves. If I stopped and got on my knees, then I would not be between them and God. His goal for them went beyond them simply being happy. He wanted to use their circumstances to transform them into the likeness of Jesus.
As my girls have gotten older, their circumstances and situations have gotten bigger. When I find myself getting caught up in their emotions or their feelings of being unhappy, I stop and remember what my wise friend told me all those years ago. My prayer has always been for them to know God. To really know Him and know who He is in their own life. He is answering that prayer as He works the bigger picture in their lives. He not only sees the circumstances; He sees the treasure behind the circumstances. He isn't as concerned with their feeling of happiness because He has a view that I don't have. He has bigger plans.
I am still happy when they are happy and I still hurt when they hurt. I still get in the way sometimes as I do the mom thing. But when I find myself waving the "let me fix it" flag in front of them, I hit my knees and get out of their line of vision. I want them to pursue holiness. To be set apart in their actions and their responses to their circumstances. I can't do that for them. But as they walk in the things they have learned in our home, they begin to look more like Him. They learn for themselves what it means to be holy.
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