School is here and life will be different. Early mornings, to-go lunches and coordination of multiple homework projects will be your life for the next four months. That is, assuming you manage to stay alive. It’s no wonder that MSN Money determined that if a stay-at-home mom got paid for her work, based on the national median salary, she’d be bringing in $138,000 per year.
But it doesn’t stop with elementary age. Snap your fingers once and your child is suddenly in middle school. This is the age where most parents discover that trying to raise a puberty-stricken mini-teenager is like nailing Jell-O to a tree. Between soccer games and dance classes you suddenly discover that you’ve become the family volunteer taxi driver. By the time they are in high school that license you couldn’t wait for them to get to relieve you of your carting duties, has now become a source of fear when you see your baby sitting behind the wheel of a 3,000 pound weapon. Pimples, peer pressure and video game addiction do not make it easier. And were parents really meant to endure the unnerving thump of head-banging music or to figure out how their child interpreted 10:00 p.m. curfew as 10:00 a.m. the next morning?
And then one day the house goes eerily quiet and your child is in college. Will your child stick with it and get all the way through? Will he be responsible with his bills? Will she preserve her virginity until she says, “I do”?
Being the parent of a child in school at any age can be a daunting task, and as the new school year begins, you may feel the weight of exhaustion already. It reminds me of something Jesus said in the gospel of Matthew, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Do you feel the pressures of parenthood caving in on you? Does the idea of rest and relaxation become more elusive by the minute? Christ calls all the weary, the stressed and the broken to Himself and says, “I will give you rest.”
Have you considered that Someone from above cares about your daily struggles even more than you do? And have you considered that He knows what it’s like, for He too suffered on this earth and lived a life as a human, enduring all the types of pains, struggles and battles we face today.
But notice that Jesus did not say, “Come to Me and I’ll fix all your problems. Come to Me and I’ll eliminate all your burdens.” We all have burdens to bear and often without those burdens we would not learn and grow. But Christ offers you a different kind of rest. It’s a rest far deeper and much longer lasting than the temporary solutions of a well-ordered schedule or a school year with no hiccups.
You see, Christ bore the ultimate burden for you 2,000 years ago; a burden far greater than the challenges of parenting a student. It’s called sin. He took your sin upon Himself and suffered its full penalty by dying on the cross. He did this for you, even before you were born. But that burden did not keep Christ in the grave. Three days later He rose from the dead, proving that He is the Savior of the world, God in the flesh.
Knowing that He suffered the greatest burden of all, you can know with assurance that no burden is too great for Him to bear, even the burden of parenthood in the month of September. Why don’t you ask Him for help today?
But it doesn’t stop with elementary age. Snap your fingers once and your child is suddenly in middle school. This is the age where most parents discover that trying to raise a puberty-stricken mini-teenager is like nailing Jell-O to a tree. Between soccer games and dance classes you suddenly discover that you’ve become the family volunteer taxi driver. By the time they are in high school that license you couldn’t wait for them to get to relieve you of your carting duties, has now become a source of fear when you see your baby sitting behind the wheel of a 3,000 pound weapon. Pimples, peer pressure and video game addiction do not make it easier. And were parents really meant to endure the unnerving thump of head-banging music or to figure out how their child interpreted 10:00 p.m. curfew as 10:00 a.m. the next morning?
And then one day the house goes eerily quiet and your child is in college. Will your child stick with it and get all the way through? Will he be responsible with his bills? Will she preserve her virginity until she says, “I do”?
Being the parent of a child in school at any age can be a daunting task, and as the new school year begins, you may feel the weight of exhaustion already. It reminds me of something Jesus said in the gospel of Matthew, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Do you feel the pressures of parenthood caving in on you? Does the idea of rest and relaxation become more elusive by the minute? Christ calls all the weary, the stressed and the broken to Himself and says, “I will give you rest.”
Have you considered that Someone from above cares about your daily struggles even more than you do? And have you considered that He knows what it’s like, for He too suffered on this earth and lived a life as a human, enduring all the types of pains, struggles and battles we face today.
But notice that Jesus did not say, “Come to Me and I’ll fix all your problems. Come to Me and I’ll eliminate all your burdens.” We all have burdens to bear and often without those burdens we would not learn and grow. But Christ offers you a different kind of rest. It’s a rest far deeper and much longer lasting than the temporary solutions of a well-ordered schedule or a school year with no hiccups.
You see, Christ bore the ultimate burden for you 2,000 years ago; a burden far greater than the challenges of parenting a student. It’s called sin. He took your sin upon Himself and suffered its full penalty by dying on the cross. He did this for you, even before you were born. But that burden did not keep Christ in the grave. Three days later He rose from the dead, proving that He is the Savior of the world, God in the flesh.
Knowing that He suffered the greatest burden of all, you can know with assurance that no burden is too great for Him to bear, even the burden of parenthood in the month of September. Why don’t you ask Him for help today?
Seth Kniep is the Pastor of College & Singles at Calvary Bible Church. He and his wife Kimberly have four children and live in Portage.
