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    I Need Some Help Here!: Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go according to Plan
    I Need Some Help Here!: Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go according to Plan
    I Need Some Help Here!: Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go according to Plan
    Ebook193 pages2 hours

    I Need Some Help Here!: Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go according to Plan

    By Kathi Lipp

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    About this ebook

    It's easy to feel overwhelmed as a parent--and worried and anxious. There are so many areas of a child's life that can go wrong along the way. What's a mom to do?

    With wit and wisdom, Kathi Lipp meets moms where they are and offers the most powerful hope they have--prayer--for both their kids and themselves. Chapters include

    When Your Child Is Running Away from God
    When Your Child Makes Poor Choices
    When Your Child Is Struggling
    When Your Child Is Left Out
    When Your Child Is Different

    Moms who are overwhelmed or simply need a little support will cherish this expert guidance on praying for their kids--from toddler to teenager--with boldness and confidence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBaker Publishing Group
    Release dateMay 27, 2014
    ISBN9781441245229
    I Need Some Help Here!: Hope for When Your Kids Don't Go according to Plan
    Author

    Kathi Lipp

    Kathi Lipp is a national speaker, podcast host of the Clutter Free Academy, and the bestselling author of The Husband Project, Clutter Free and Overwhelmed. She and her husband, Roger, live in San Jose, California and are parents of four young adults. Using humor and wisdom, Kathi offers hope paired with practical steps to women looking to live with meaning. You can follow Kathi at www.KathiLipp.com.

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      I Need Some Help Here! - Kathi Lipp

      feet.

      introduction

      I feel like I’m failing as a mom.

      Please tell me I’m not scarring my kids.

      Others joke that they need to save up not for college but for therapy for their kids. I’m afraid that I’m not joking.

      As parents, many of us are silently pleading, I wish someone would just tell me what to do.

      Oh, how often have I heard that same sentence—usually when I’m huddled in a corner, praying with a mom whose child is in trouble. Maybe her daughter is sick or her son has made some bad choices in life. Her toddler is defiant, her teen is running wild, or her adult child is no longer speaking to her. She is heartsick and would do anything—anything—to make her child okay.

      When I’m sitting there, my hands clasped around hers, praying that God would change the situation, I don’t just feel bad for this poor mom, I feel empathy too. Real, true, deep, heartfelt empathy. Because every prayer we’re praying I’ve prayed a thousand times for my own children:

      when my son was asked to leave his preschool class for disruptive behavior

      when my stepdaughter said yes to an engagement ring from the man my husband and I knew was not in God’s will for her life

      when my daughter was in the emergency room of our local hospital for hours on end and the doctors couldn’t figure out why she was having pains that made her scream

      when my stepson refused to talk to me at my wedding because he hated that I was marrying his dad

      when I found the medical marijuana card in the laundry

      Every single time I thought, I wish someone would tell me what to do. Like you, I want the best for my kids. I would lay down my life for them. I want to take every pain away, to stop every potential issue before it happens, to keep them safe and healthy. And I want them to grow into men and women who love God and live by his Word.

      But, frustratingly, sometimes the next step isn’t do. Sometimes the next step is to just be still and know that he is God. Yes, the next step is pray.

      For years I’ve loved the story of the Amalekite battle in Exodus 17:8–14:

      The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.

      So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

      Then the Lord said to Moses, Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.

      I’ve loved this story for so many reasons:

      Moses listened to God. He didn’t try a bunch of other approaches and then think, Okay, none of those worked. Maybe I should give God’sway a try. No, he listened to God.

      Moses was obedient. It shows radical obedience when we’re standing in a battle for our own lives.

      The story shows the power of community. Aaron and Hur are the ones holding up Moses’s hands in the battle. When we grow tired and can’t keep up the battle, God gives us a model of what real community looks like: supporting each other.

      The story also shows that comfort is important in these hard times. Not only did Aaron and Hur support Moses’s hands, but they also provided a rock for him to sit on. It’s not an accident that that detail was included. We don’t just need truth in our parenting; we need a community that will love us, pray with us, support us, and believe in us as well.

      Recently when I was sitting in church, my pastor, Scott Simmerok, talked about this portion of Scripture. I thought, I’ve spoken and written about this Scripture over a hundred times. I could make my shopping list for the week on the back of this church program. But not wanting anyone to see me ignoring the pastor, I figured I’d better listen and take a few notes.

      That’s when I realized I’d been missing a huge point in this story all along. Yes, it’s about community. Yes, it’s about strength and comfort. But the real point?

      God won the battle.

      It was God. Yes, Moses was obedient. He did what God asked him to do: he stood on the hill with the staff in his hands. He prayed. And when he grew weary, he called in reinforcements.

      But it was God who won the battle, God who did the heavy lifting. That is what we as parents must never forget.

      We can do so little to effect change in our children’s lives. But God can do everything.

      When it comes to our kids, we do have someone telling us what to do: Moses. He is a great example. Like Moses, we have to:

      Listen to God. He has already given us wisdom in his Word.

      Trust God to win the battle, even when things look dire.

      Pray fiercely.

      Do what God says, even if it seems like it won’t help.

      Surround ourselves with people who will provide comfort and strength as we go through the battle.

      Have patience and allow God to work.

      As parents, we must never forget—we can do everything we know how to do.

      Recently I was having a conversation with my friend Rob Teigen, who wrote a delightful book called 88 Great Daddy-Daughter Dates. I was telling him how I’ve talked to moms about the guilt we have with how our kids did or didn’t turn out. Here’s the thing: Rob is a great dad and has a bunch of great kids, so I wasn’t confident that he would get the angst that some of us parents go through when our kids don’t go according to plan. But then Rob surprised me by saying, I was on a flight a few weeks ago and was talking to a dad who heard I had published a book for dads and daughters, and he was asking me a bunch of questions. He was expressing his disappointment with the fact that he did not have a really close relationship with his daughter. I said to him that I think as parents, we take way too much credit when things go right with our kids and take way too much blame when they go wrong.

      We get trapped in the lie that if only we had put our kids in the right school, been there more, and so on, they would have turned out differently. On the other hand, when our child is getting straight As and leading a missions trip to Mexico, it’s easy to take the credit. In both circumstances, we must remember that the battle for our kids is God’s.

      When we parent, especially when our kids are taking a different route than we expected, it also helps to remember how our heavenly Father parents us.

      Author and speaker Michele Cushatt talks about how her thinking changed after going through a prodigal son experience in her own life:

      I used to think of parenting as a math problem. To get extra-good kids, you need to be an extra-good mom. You know, 2 + 2 = 4.

      Of course, that was back when I managed every detail of my kids’ little lives. Like what they ate for dinner and what time they went to bed. It was easy to think I could control the outcome when my biggest challenge was cutting their meat into itty-bitty pieces.

      Then they grew up. And one day our sixteen-year-old left home and refused to come back. Wanting independence and a place free of rules, he rebelled and rejected everything we stood for.

      In a moment, my math stopped adding up.

      How did this happen? I’d done everything I knew to do, so where had I gone wrong? After years of math, I could make only one conclusion.

      It was my fault. Somehow I’d failed at motherhood.

      From the moment I became a mother, I’d tried to be perfect, to get it all right. But in all my pushing and striving and expecting perfection, I’d forgotten other key parts of the parenting equation.

      Humanness. God. And grace.

      There’s nothing wrong with hard work and striving for excellence. But it’s not easy living under the expectation of perfection. In all my efforts of trying to be the best mom (and generate amazing kids), I put too much pressure on myself—and the family. And I missed teaching them about the beauty and covering of God’s perfect grace.

      Eventually our son came home—repentant, ready for relationship, and one step closer to maturity.

      But I too needed to repent. To confess my perfection expectation for both myself and for him. My failures and willingness to own them would’ve been a much better teacher of the God I wanted my children to know. So I committed to give my children a little extra room to make mistakes, admit them, and come back home. For myself too.

      Because, after all, that’s exactly what God does for me and you.

      So, friends, this book will have a lot of do. There will be steps to help you deal with not just your kids but your reactions as well. Yes, there will be a lot of do. But there will also be a lot of stop, trust, and pray. Because as much as you love your kids, they are God’s children, and the battle for their hearts, their minds, and their lives is his.

      1

      unlikely gifts

      There she sits across from me—my friend who did everything right as a parent. She and her husband are the good parents at church. They have a close, loving family—their kids love and respect them, and they have a strong marriage, serve in the church, and are the first ones anyone calls on when they have a need.

      But now she sits across from me. She’s a part of the club that no parent ever signs up for.

      It’s the Our Kids Weren’t Supposed to Turn Out This Way Club.

      Somewhat surprisingly (to me, at least), she and her husband have gone through the initiation that every single member has: realizing her kids aren’t as perfect as she thought they were. She’s suspicious that her kids are doing one of the things that she hoped they never would.

      Whether it’s a big thing like drinking, sex, or drugs, or a starter crime like lying, sneaking, or cheating, it hurts us parents to watch, especially because often these broken behaviors go much deeper than simple bad behavior. There’s also the realization that the behavior has been covered in lies so deep you don’t know who or what to trust anymore.

      It’s the feeling of overwhelming love for your child, but also a rage that cuts to the very core of you as a parent.

      I look at my friend who loves her son but is so hurt, is so scared, and feels so betrayed that she is at a loss for what to do, because her kid of all kids wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.

      I sit and listen to the misdeeds of her son, and while each behavior has ripped to her core, I hear nothing new. Her son has done the exact same things that my kids and most of my friends’ kids have done.

      Now don’t get me wrong. When your kid chooses the wrong way, it causes a lot of undue pain. I tell my friend that. I am careful not to discount or minimize her pain, because I know all too well how bad it hurts to watch a child going down the wrong path. But I also want to reassure her that she is not alone. Not only does she have a God who loves both her and her child desperately and perfectly, but she also has a bunch of prayer warriors and other moms who care enough to pray her through it.

      Whether it’s a child who is behaving badly, an unexpected illness, or some other issue that has thrown your child off course, it can be devastating. But as odd as it is to say, there are gifts in being the parent of a child who is broken, who is living a life that you never would have chosen for them. There are gifts for you.

      So I start the process of inviting my friend into the club. I let her know that through all the pain, the brokenness, the anger, and the tears that seem to break out at the most inappropriate times, there are gifts to being here in this place she never wanted to be.

      Here are a few of the gifts that I received through my broken kids—gifts I never would have chosen but am truly grateful for every day.

      The Gift of Community

      One of the most powerful sentences in the English language is Me too! It helps us discover who our people are. You move from sympathy to empathy when you hear that someone is in the same battle you are.

      Some of my closest friends started out as acquaintances who, once their children went off the rails, became my mom army. My closest comrades in arms.

      Sometimes it’s hard to find those other parents. We have all become so good at building our kids up that it feels like a betrayal of our own when we admit

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