restraint

I have a two year old. Any of you who have ever had one, or taught one, or even baby-sat one know that you ought to pity me. Life is a constant battle with a two year old. Some battles are over character, these are exhausting, but not frightening (a two year old's version of un-virtuous is undesirable and unenjoyable but not horrific).

Other battles have stronger immediate consequences... for instance the last time I visited Portland I went to breakfast with a dear friend and her significant other. It was this cool place where you chose your pancake components and then cooked your own pancakes on a hot electrical griddle inlaid in the table. I knew that this was a high risk activity with an Olivia, but decided she was old enough to follow my directions. I warned her about the "hot, hot, owie" that would happen if she touched it. "no no" and such. The one second I turn my head to place my order with the waitress Olivia reaches out to the very center of the hot plate and plants a full open palm right down. She is of course immediately "repentant" and deeply grieved. I felt horrible. I had failed to do my job. I had laid down the law and she had run right against it to her own detriment.

There are more and more of these sorts of situations encountered by us daily now. The strange temptation to run out into the street, run away from me in a store, and other frightening desires often lead us into full out "wars". She becomes irate that I won't indulge her in her desire for liberation and works herself into a frenzy of self pity and woe. I often have to physically restrain her to control her irrational and frantic desire to express her dissatisfaction with my law for her. She hates being restrained.... HATES IT. If I so much as hold down her hands to keep her from hitting me or herself she yells bloody murder as if I were beating her or twisting her arm behind her... Finally, eventually, whether because she calms herself, because I transition from restraint to embrace, or because I leave her in a crib or other safe-haven to work out the remainder of her fit, she does calm down and we are able have an actual, productive understanding of why her actions as a whole were not okay. I hope that some day these will lead to an appreciation of the rules I've laid down, but only God knows.

I think of one of these situations of restraint and tantrum when I read Galatians 3:23-26. captive, imprisoned, guardian are all words that make me think of my relationship to Olive. And what a hope! That in the end it is for the truest liberation! Sonship (or daughter-ship I guess as the case were) without a necessary guardian thru and by faith. Putting on Christ, putting on His mind, His heart, knowing His will because I know Him... my hope is in getting there. I'm so thankful that He is more patient with me than I am with Olive. I often fight His restraint... So thankful for His justification of me in Christ.