tough love...

Hebrews 12:6 "For the Lord disciplines those He loves..."

the honest truth is that as a parent i do not know too much about "tough love". i have had easy breezy moments that have required me to stand firm and not smile as my 2 year old tells me that he is going to unbuckle his seat belt but he promises "i'll tell you i'm sorry" when i scold him for even thinking about it. i have had difficult moments where i have forced my oldest son into a situation that makes him uncomfortable because i know that socially he needs to be pushed. i have had frustrating moments when my oldest daughter has tested limits and boundaries and i have been forced to fulfill the punishment that i threatened as a mere display of consistency.
but i have never had to deliver heart breaking moments of tough love.
i am amazed by the strength that it takes to discipline in those moments. the truth is that actions have consequences and sometimes in order to learn not to make the same choices over again it is necessary to feel the full weight of those consequences.
and i guess it is that time of year again for me. yep...it's birthday time! the joyous occasion of my daughter's birth always reminds me of how thankful i am for discipline.
i know i face more and more questions as my daughter's knowledge of life sits ominously off on the horizon, yet i can honestly say i am not scared of answering her questions. awkward. embarrassed. but not scared.
i live a life that testifies not only to discipline but to how God can use that discipline to become the greatest joy in our lives. i would like to say that i was ignorant to the fact that my choices were not great, but the truth is far from that. i knew that i was not in a healthy relationship. i knew that i deserved to be treated better. but unfortunately i disobeyed wise council. "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality" (I Thes 4:3). for so long i viewed that as being about restriction. but now i know that God's commands are to there to keep us happy and healthy. sex is meant to bind. it makes sense not to bind together that which will not remain. and for me, i could not leave a relationship that was clearly unhealthy because i had tied myself to a person for whom i was not made. when i found out i was pregnant i grieved. i am pretty sure i went through all the classic 7 stages. when i got to the stage dealing with anger i wondered "why me?". in my opinion at that moment i knew many people that were far more "guilty" than i was and i wondered why no one else seemed to be drawing the short straw. not too long after that my life began to change. i finally found the strength to close that chapter in my life. i finally walked away from that relationship, one i had wanted to walk away from many times before, because i thought of raising my child in that environment. i knew i didn't want her to know that life. i didn't want my baby to have to feel the way i had felt. i never wanted her to experience the pain i had felt. i deserved better and he deserved better. the consequence that i despised became my strength. it was in that moment that i realized that God knew that i would not be able to cut that tie for myself.
we both needed to be set free. and through that act of "tough love" our lives were forever changed. God had a better life for us and we couldn't walk in that because of our inability to follow his rules.
i remember reading in Zephaniah when i was pregnant with harper and a verse that i read that night became so real to me that night that it has stuck with me for these 7 years as a moment frozen in time and reminder to me of the God i serve. "The Lord within her is righteous; He does no wrong. Morning by morning, He dispenses his justice, and every day he does not fail, yet the unrighteous know no shame." i still marvel at how God has used this life of mine, a life that i tried my hardest to mess up, and turned it around to be a life that brings Him glory. only God could do that. i have done plenty wrong, but somehow, even through consequence and discipline (or especially) God turns those moments into beacons in the darkness.
i still live with the consequence of my sin. everyday i see the ripple effect of choices i made in college. i see how my choices have affected my husband. how my choices have affected my family. my husband's family. my sons. my daughter. jacob. jacob's family. merriwether. my friends and their kids. and my sweet, precious harper. her life is a ripple effect of consequence that reflects the beauty of the tough love of God. i feel so humbled just to write that list of people who have been affected by my bad choices. i also feel so blessed. i deserved nothing, yet i was shown grace. and that grace looked oddly enough like tough love...