For Mother’s Day, I’m thinking of asking for one of those black and white striped shirts like hockey referees wear. I figure that I spend a significant portion of some of my days pursuing the career of referee, so I need a referee shirt. Plus, you don’t see hockey players failing to take the referee seriously. I think it’s because of the shirt. So maybe, if I wore a referee shirt, my kids would take me seriously.
I’d also need a whistle—one of those big ones that with one blast could send birds dropping out of the trees like rocks. I don’t really want to injure any birds, but it sure would be nice if I could blow a whistle and have my kids stop still.
So there you have it—a perfect Mother’s Day gift. A referee shirt and a whistle.
I think these accoutrements would have helped me one particular day that I remember. It was not a good day, in terms of my kids keeping their hands to themselves. My son, who was two-and-a-half, had developed a taste for hitting. He didn’t do it to be mean. He just did it because his sister (either one) was in his way, and he wanted her to move. Or, she had made him mad—which apparently meant he had to hit her in revenge. He also liked pushing. Again, he didn’t do it to be mean. He just wanted to see what would happen if you gave a quickly crawling baby a strong push on the bottom. (Note: she’d fall flat on her face and begin to cry.)
So there was Kenny’s desire to push or hit anyone who was in his way or made him mad, or to do the same any time he wanted to see the effects. And this desire of his kept running smack-dab up against the desire of his older sister for him not to do that. She didn’t like being pushed or hit, and she wouldn’t get out of his way, even when he did it. She would stand there and scream and cry like he was killing her, but she most certainly wouldn’t walk away (because that might mean she wouldn’t get out the door first and therefore wouldn’t get to choose the coveted rear seat in the van).
So if I had the right gear, I could stop all these little brouhahas quick as—well—a whistle. (Remember that if you have the right gear, even hockey players, who are notorious for fighting, have to take you seriously.) I could march right up to them and blow the whistle. They would stop, surprised, and look at me. I could then send the offender to the penalty box. That’s nothing more than a time-out for hockey players. (I wonder if a mother invented that.) After the penalty was over, the offender could come out and play nice, and the offended party could let him (or her) back in the game.
Sometimes, it does indeed work like this. That’s what time-outs are for. But I get really tired, just as you do, of spending my days repeating the same things: don’t hit your sister. Be nice. Say you’re sorry. Stop screaming. Your brother was there first. Give that back. And I get tired of hearing screams and tears of outrage from my barely-wronged daughter who feels she has been grievously wronged and is giving a performance worthy of an Oscar. I’m really tired of this, I sometimes think to myself. Why can’t they just get along?
Do you ever wonder if God thinks the same thing? Not about our children, but about us? Do you ever wonder if he gets tired of refereeing our petty squabbles?
Though it isn’t right, children can reasonably be expected to do a certain amount of fighting and arguing, and maybe even hitting and pushing. They’re children, after all, and they don’t have the emotional maturity to deal with conflict in the way we would like them to. They also may not have the Holy Spirit in their hearts yet, convicting them of sin. But we who are adults and have received the precious gift of the Holy Spirit should know better. Yet we continue to grumble against others; we criticize; we say other things we shouldn’t say; and sometimes, we even push and hit. And we put the Holy Spirit in the middle as referee.
I know when Kenny’s hitting Ellie, and when she’s screaming and crying, they don’t feel much like loving each other. So what do I do as a parent? I try to help them learn to love at all times so that these kinds of situations (where loving gets difficult) never occur in the first place. God has done the same thing. He has given us his Word and his Holy Spirit to help us learn how to love others “in advance”—so that things don’t get to the point of conflict.
So the next time your kids are fighting, put on your referee shirt and go break it up—and then ask God to bring to mind any situations where he’s had to act as referee between you and someone else. And then go and make it right.
Psalm 133:1—How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!