Your Children’s Flawed Mama
My children’s flawed homeschooling mama, c. 1998
In my introduction to this series of lessons from Titus 2 for homeschooling mothers, I confessed to being like the character Jo March in Little Women. Jo described herself as “hopelessly flawed.” However, I noted that though I am hopelessly flawed, I am not hopeless because Jesus took care of all of my hopeless flaws—and yours—on the Cross.
The women that Paul told Titus to instruct were also hopelessly flawed—the older ones and the younger ones. If we are honest, we all go to bed each night knowing it is true for us, too.
We women sometimes look at our hopelessly flawed lives in constructive ways and sometimes in destructive ones. We can allow our flaws to depress us so much that we wallow in them. While wallowing, we focus on ourselves and aren’t much help to anyone. Then that husband and those children that Titus 2 tells us to love don’t get the attention they deserve. God has provided a better way.
For the sorrow that is according to the will of God
produces a repentance without regret,
leading to salvation,
but the sorrow of the world produces death.
2 Corinthians 7:10
If older women and younger women are all fallible, why does Paul give older women responsibility for teaching younger ones? Perhaps one reason is that we have had so many experiences living, loving, gaining, losing, failing, succeeding, sinning, and being forgiven.
Since I married Ray 49 years ago, I have been amazed at his knowledge. As I have told you before, I call him my dictionary, encyclopedia, and Bible concordance. Many times, when I have once again been dumbfounded at his knowledge, I have asked, “How did you know that?” and he has told me again, “I pay attention.”
I think one advantage of being older is that we have had longer to pay attention. In Psalm 37, the psalmist writes:
I have been young and now I am old,
Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
Or his descendants begging bread.
Psalm 37:25
He had been paying attention. All our years of living, loving, gaining, and losing teach us, if we pay attention, too.
One advantage of age is learning that there is gain after loss, joy after sorrow, relief after pain, accomplishment after failure. We older women have simply lived long enough to experience those things over and over again. We have learned that God is with us in all of life, when things are going the way we want them to and when they are not.
Those of us who have homeschooled know that a child’s inability to learn something today doesn’t mean they won’t be able to learn it sometime later. We have also learned that problems have solutions.
More importantly, we have learned that problems do not mean that God doesn’t love us anymore; problems actually mean that He does love us. In Job we learn that God does not cause our suffering. However, He does allow it. This allowing is His discipline.
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.
It is for discipline that you endure;
God deals with you as with sons;
for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
For they disciplined us for a short time
as seemed best to them,
but He disciplines us for our good,
so that we may share His holiness.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;
yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Hebrews 12:6-7, 10-11
As your flawed children learn each day from their flawed mama, God is doing something wonderful. Trust Him. Repent when you fail. Learn when you face hard times. Get back up. Accept the training and enjoy the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God,Â
let us hold fast our confession.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize
with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted
in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Therefore let us draw near with confidence
to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:14-16