Raising Kingdom Abled Kids: Don’t Look Back

Yikes. I know if it were ME, I’d be like, “Hey Adam, I am SOOOO  outta here. We had fun and all, but sorry – sorrow and pain? No way I’m having babies. Later.” But Eve? She stuck it out. She knew the curse and still she had babies with Adam – at least 3 sons.* Of course, we know the story doesn’t end there, because her first born son would kill her second.

There is a temptation here, I think, to credit Adam and Eve with being bad parents but something we need to remember is that Abel was a good kid – a really good kid. \Abel was a shepherd and knew to give God the best offering, the fat of his finest sheep, messy though it might be and it his offering pleased God. He must have given with a generous spirit and a humble heart. Cain, a farmer, gave God a gift too – but I don’t think it was the best he had to offer. As a friend once said, it could have been “sloppy seconds.” Maybe it was some rotten fruit or apples fallen and trampled. All we know is what God sees: “He did not respect Cain and his offering.” And further, God tells Cain, “If you do not do well, sin lies at the door” – meaning Cain didn’t offer his gift to honor God. Sounds like he did this grudgingly. And the result? He murders his brother in a jealous rage.

So yea, there’s a lot we can blame on the parents, who first sinned. It’s natural that they would have a son who grew to be the first sinner, but they also raised a son who grew up to be (most likely) the first person in heaven. I like to think that Eve, with sorrow in her heart for the mistake she could never take back, set her children on her knee and told them exactly what it was like to walk in the presence of God. The reaction of her sons was just different. While murder and anger and jealously lurked in Cain’s heart, Abel demonstrated love for God by giving Him his finest. Surely he learned that from his parents, in some small way.

Now Eve has this to look back on: the first sin of all time AND a son who is the first murderer, of her other child. Wouldn’t you be completely done with childbearing at this point? And yet, she has another child, Seth. And so we see Eve, not only as the first sinner among humans, but as a woman who could move beyond the horrid mistake of her past to live out her duty as a wife and mother.

Lot’s Wife: Frozen and Crumbling

Now, Lot’s wife was just the opposite. Lot and his two daughters lived in a place called Sodom (story in Genesis 19), which God was going to destroy for its wickedness. Angels save Lot, a Godly man, and his family is relocated to another city, with the instruction not to look back. His wife has just one line in the Bible:

But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. – Gen. 19:26

It’s hard to understand specifically why this happened, but I can venture a guess. A few weeks ago, my husband found some old videos of Amelia when she was 3. She was amazing, just like any 3 year old: cute, adorable, verbal and completely understandable. She was engaged, focused and active, again, like any other 3 year old. Today, she is challenging to understand and her speech meanders all over the place. It’s indirect, she speaks in 3rd person about herself, scripts her language from movies and uses correlation to describe a thing. Sometimes it’s all muddied and hard to understand. Although that issue is improving, watching that video was heart breaking. How did this happen? How did she lose her speech in this way? When did her problems start?

Asking those questions has some merit, I grant you, but I see lots of moms stuck in a place they shouldn’t be by looking back at what a child has lost. This is especially true for parents of kids with regressive autism. If some “thing” truly stole my daughter’s abilities, I have two choices:

• Look back in anger, remorse and grumble over what was “stolen.” Like Lot’s wife, I can be frozen into a crumbling statue of salt, looking, blaming, arguing and letting my heart fill with hate and desperation until I’m too lost to do any without falling apart.
• Take Paul’s advice of “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.” (Phil 3:13b) Paul is encouraging us by sharing his example of moving forward into the things God has designed for us to live His purpose.

Even if the past looks brighter, we don’t own time machines to get back to it. We have come down the path that God has required of us and we must move forward. We must let go of that other child that existed before, whether she was whole and what we think is perfect, or whether she was in pain and suffering and agony that has been repaired. We must go forward for our children and for our purpose in this world, like Eve did.

And thank God she did! If not, there’d be world, no people to fill it, no me and you and none of our beautiful children who fill our hearts and minds with beauty and sorrow and pain.

And that’s a thing I would not trade for any perfect world.

*There’s no mention in the Bible but I’m not sure how else creation could have moved forward unless Eve had some daughters and that some serious hanky panky went on between siblings.