Commonplace Entry: Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot
The Shaping Of A Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Own. Purchased on the recommendation of Cindy at Ordo Amoris.
My review.
This is Elisabeth Elliot. All italics are her own. :)
Responsibility
There is no doubt that the influences in the first eight to ten years of a child’s life pretty well determine his future course. Whoever spends the most of his waking hours with him is the principle moulder of his character.
I believe that trust in God, love for one’s children, and prayer for wisdom are a recipe for successful parenthood far more reliable than all the books and seminars in the world.
Fathers and mothers need to know their children as well as humanly possible.
Faith
“A Christian who is saturated with the Word,” [my father] wrote, “is likely to have a calm, wholesome outlook on life; to be kept steady in the path of God’s will in either joy or sorrow, wealth or poverty; he is likely to be a pleasant companion, not voluble in aimless talk; and he will not be overly disturbed by world conditions.
Our parents prayed every day for God’s help. They made mistakes, and they asked His forgiveness and, on occasion, ours too.
They knew from the start that they were trustees, not owners, of the children God had given them. We were not their property. We had been lent to them for a time, a sacred trust of which they were the divinely assigned trustees. A time came when that trust had been discharged.
Mother and Daddy backed off [when we neared adulthood], knowing their role was now prayer more than anything else, prayer that God would fulfil in their children the covenant He made[.]
The fault of the fathers often is that they expect their finding to stand in the place of their children’s seeking. They expect the children to receive that which has satisfied the need of their fathers upon their testimony; whereas rightly, their testimony is not ground for their children’s belief, only for their children’s search. (George MacDonald)
God never issued instructions which He is not prepared to enable us to follow. The contrast between the actual and the ideal, between the reality and the holy standard, is bridged by the grace of God, and by our prayers for the application of that grace.
God knows the feelings of discouragement, inadequacy, and failure which conscientious parents feel. But it was His idea to make them parents and to give them this particular set of children. He knew they would not do a perfect job. He is Father to the parents, and promises every kind of help they ned. He stands beside them in every situation, ready to give wisdom as needed and grace to help in time of need if only they will turn to Him and ask for it.
Authority
[Mother & Daddy] provided a united front to their children, most particularly in matters of discipline.
A parent’s authority is a sacrificial authority, requiring the laying down of one’s very life.
He loves us with an everlasting love. He is our Refuge when we are afraid, our Strength when we are weak, our Helper when we cannot cope. Parents stand in the place of God for their children. They must be for them refuge, strength, and helper, not adversary.
If children learned early to respect even to stand in awe of, their parents, they would be far less likely to get into trouble by defying other authorities God places over them.
“A mission for your redemption.” This is how Christian parents see their enforcement of the principles on which their home is based.
Obedience
In order to properly harken, which is the beginning of learning, one must be obedient. Training must come before teaching. Before parents can train their children properly, they must first discipline themselves. (Katherine Howard)
To control movement in obedience to parents enables a child to control movement later in obedience to his own will.
The keeping of these rules was our early training in hat renunciation and death to self which will never be easy for any of us so long as we live in this mortal body, yet that very renunciation is the route to freedom and fulfilment. The obedient child is the happiest child.
The father who loves his son desires his growth in wisdom and grace and is therefore willing to correct him, even with a rod if need be.
A spanking, wrote my father, not done in anger, will clear up a sullen attitude on the part of a young child as a thunderstorm freshens the air on a sultry day. It gets results faster than argument, is a warning to the other children looking on, and even the whipped child, deep down in his heart, realizes that he got what he deserved and is therefore quieter, more tractable, and really happier afterwards.
A spanking is not child abuse. It is a deliberate measure of pain, delivered calmly, lovingly, and with self-control, on a loved child in order to deliver him from self-will and ultimate self-destruction. This is how God treats sons. My parents took their cues from Him.
Our parents sometimes said to us that “delayed obedience is disobedience.” This was a general rule, for usually when they asked us to do something they expected it done quickly. It was not a hard and fast rule.
It was our parents’ object to break the child’s will without breaking the child’s spirit. [...] A horse that has been broken may be a highly spirited horse. The breaking is the bringing him under the control of bridle and rein, which are at the will of his rider. If he was lively, vigorous, and full of life before he was broken, he will continue to be. [...] The child whose will is trained to subjection is a freer, happier child, much pleasanter company than he whose own will is his only law.
Our performance was not the result of relentless goading, or even the prospect of great rewards, but of that steady pressure to be at our best, to do what was right.
Order & Discipline
What would happen to the galaxies if they were unstructured? Certainly there should be order in the home.
Our home was orderly. [...] Schoolbooks, shoes, papers, or toys did not adorn the front hall or the living room, towels were hung straight in the bathroom, the crisp linen doilies and dresser covers that my mother liked were always clean. A perfect home. Was it? Of course not. It could not have been impeccable at all times, but this is my impression and that of others who remember our home at all. As a child I took it for granted, but later when I came home from boarding school or college it hit me as soon as I entered the front hall — the freshness, the neatness, the sense of things being placed.
In our home, there was a place for everything, and we understood that everything had to be put in its place. This takes endless repetition. There is no other way to train children.
I have already described how carefully we were trained in where things go — a place for everything, everything in its place. There was security in this routine and consistency. Life is simplified when you know what, how, where. A hook for the car keys and the car keys always on the hook eliminate frantic scrambles all over the house with everybody shouting at everybody else about who had them last.
Integrity, reliability, steadiness, thoroughness were concepts not talked about but demonstrated by the life lived before us. These are what may be called the “harder” virtues, developed through small renunciations and sacrifices, building the principles of self-discipline without which life is hardly worth living.
Ordinary work, which is what most of us do most of the time, is ordained by God every bit as much as is the extraordinary. All work done for God is spiritual work and therefore not merely a duty but a holy privilege.
Our parents’ ultimate goal in their discipline, the goal of anyone who teaches anything, is that the pupil may be led by degrees to self-discipline and become a law to himself. I for one am thankful for the habits they taught me, for habits are powerful things — work, prayer, obedience, church-going, “eating your spinach before you eat dessert” — these things have helped me through all my life.
It is, after all, mostly little, common things that make up our lives, This is the raw material for the spiritual life. If we despise small things, regard normal household duties as burdens, routines as boring, rules too confining, we will never learn, nor can we teach our children, to live a life of holy harmony. This takes faithfulness in the troublesome details first of all, learning to do them well that we may make of them an offering to the Lord, for it is His work, after all, given to us.
Desultory working, fitful planning, irregular reading, ill-assorted hours, perfunctory or unpunctual execution of business, — these, and such like, are the things which take out the whole pith and power from life, which hinder holiness, and which eat like a canker into our moral being. (Horatius Bonar)
I am convinced that this calm, firm, loving treatment is both possible and wonderfully comforting. The child learns from Day One that someone else is in charge, and can rest in that assurance. Isn’t that what we all need throughout life? The knowledge that our lives are not haphazard but rather that we are loved with an Everlasting Love and that underneath are the Everlasting Arms? In other words, all is under control. [...] The child who life is lived at random, governed by nothing more dependable than his own whims, is insecure and therefore unmanageable. His ego needs to be bridled. When the child is unmanageable the parents are in despair. When the parents are in despair the home is in chaos.
Atmosphere
We were taught to think first — was someone asleep? was Daddy studying? did Mother have a headache? Quietness was the general rule. Gentle voices, soft footsteps, the quiet closing of doors contribute to the peace of the home. Learning these simple things is learning to look to the interests of others rather than to one’s own. If we thoughtlessly slammed a door (it was so hard to remember that big screen door in the summertime) we were asked to come back into the house and do it right.
The life lived and the things loved are what form a child’s character and taste.
Courtesy is plain, old-fashioned thoughtfulness — what will make the other person more comfortable?
A mother who uses a harsh tone is asking for argument and even defiance. She appears as the child’s adversary rather than his helper. If she heard a tape recording of her customary tone in speaking to her children perhaps she would discover the main reason for their recalcitrance, or for the breakdowns in communications.
