Your children have the uncanny ability to push your buttons like no one else on Earth. Mine did. And I think God made it that way on purpose.
Why would God have made it so that our children push our buttons? That seems like kind of a cruel joke. But I always say He’s far more concerned with our character than our comfort.
And that’s part of why I think He did it on purpose.
When I was in junior high, I went to a Christian school, and we had Bible class. One of the lessons that has always stuck with me was how a child was like a diamond in the rough. And the parents were the hammer and the chisel in God’s hands to shape me and bring out the character and the things that God had placed in me. My parents were those tools to shape me. And tried to keep that in mind as a teenager who didn’t always have the best of attitudes.
As I had children, and I homeschooled my children all the way through. My children are currently almost 22, almost 21, 19, and four. I would talk to a lot of moms who would be like, I could never homeschool my kids because they just drive me crazy. My response was, that’s exactly why God called me to homeschool. so that He could use my kids to shape me, just like He had used my parents to shape me into who He wanted me to be.
They work to rub off those rough edges.
I have been incredibly shy. I didn’t want my kids to grow up being painfully shy. So I had to work on that and start saying hi to people in the grocery store, or waiting in the grocery line. I didn’t want to model shyness for them.
That was one way God was using them to shape me.
The things that they would do that would irritate me, was highlighting stuff in me that was about me, not about them.
God doesn’t want us to stay broken.
They’re children. They’re acting like children, they’re behaving appropriately. And yes, they need to be trained. And that needs to be directed. But if I’m responding like a child, then that’s not going to go well. So He used things that they would do to show me areas I still needed to grow, areas I wasn’t trusting Him, areas I was too easily offended, areas that I was still hurt or believing lies about myself.
That’s why I think God does it on purpose because He doesn’t want you to stay broken. He doesn’t want you to be hindered from all that He created you to be. And your children can be really powerful tools in shaping you into that.
One of the reasons is because they act like us. They’re around us all the time. Each of them has different parts of their personality that is similar to ours. And it seems to go both ways, like the ones that are the most similar, or sometimes the hardest to deal with, if it’s a character trait, that we’re not really that comfortable within ourselves. And then also the opposite can be true that when they’re the opposite of us that that really rubs us and gives us a place to grow.
One of my sons is energized by arguing. It’s his personality, and he truly enjoys it. He loves to argue. It is fun for him. It is totally completely draining for me. So that was one of those areas where we had to grow and learn to respect and understand each other. I needed to say. “Okay, this is something you need. God made you this way. I don’t know why yet. But I’m trusting He’s gonna use it for His good and His glory.” And in the meantime, it’s exhausting for me.
I also take things very literally. And so having to learn for me, “I don’t need to get all upset about this. They’re not serious”. And I still like I still have to process and be like they’re not serious, don’t respond to that. But learning that instead of just continuing to overreact or squelching their personality because I can’t handle it. I can handle it. I just need to learn to see what I need in those situations. I may need to put boundaries around “I’ll argue with you for this long”, or “I’ll argue with you about these topics”. Because it is exhausting for me. So that was a way that one of my children was definitely part of shaping me in where he was so different from me.
I do believe that God made our children to push our buttons like nobody else because He wants us to grow. And it’s worth it.
If you learn to press into why do I feel this way? Why do I have a problem? Why does this rub me wrong? Why am I struggling with this? To see Is it an area that you need to mature? Is it an area that you need some healing?
I will link to a video on overreacting that talks about those overreactions, where kids push your buttons and you overreact to that are often areas that need to be healed, and they need attention in our own spirits and souls.
Leave a comment below of how your kids pushed your buttons the most – in the ways that they’re like you or the ways that they’re opposite from you.
