Listening Ears

Some days being the mom of a 4 year-old boy just about does me in. I love him. He’s quite adorable. And it’s a good thing. Because if I didn’t and he wasn’t, well, things would be a lot different.

I think my biggest struggle is his attention span and ability to listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth. Or lack thereof. But that’s part of being 4. And being a boy.

But I can’t let that be an excuse. He gets some grace in those areas, but he still must learn to listen. And obey. And some days, I swear it will kill me.

Getting a, “Huh?” or “What?” response from him before the sentence fully escapes my lips is irritating, if not discouraging. There have been days when I wondered if he truly has hearing loss. And then he hears some obscure, subtle noise and I wonder if he suffers from “Aunt Bethany Syndrome.” (“…couldn’t hear a dump truck driving through a nitro glycerin plant,” but hears the squirrel in the Christmas tree.) Then the next day he hears everything just fine and I’m assured once again that he’s not deaf, he just wasn’t listening.

On days like that, I sometimes send him to “find his listening ears” and put them on. I hope that maybe the physical act of doing something to remind him to listen might help. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

Those are often tough days. Days when I’d like to lock myself in my bedroom and lay on the bed, watch TV, and eat M&M’s until naptime. And then take a nap. But because I’m the Mom, it doesn’t work that way. So we plug on through the day as best we can and he laments naptime while I rejoice in it.

My Dad used to call his belt (or Mom’s wooden spoon) a hearing aid. Funny, Dad. The littles did seem to perk their ears up when one of those spanking implements was within arm’s reach…or in Mom’s back pocket, which is where her wooden spoon usually stayed for quick-draw purposes. I knew the fear of a spanking.

(My parents didn’t abuse us. We were lovingly corrected with “the rod”. And I’m glad. It was good for us to have our rears worn out now and then.)

(And this will not turn into a debate on spanking. That’s not what this post is about.)

The point is, knowing how frustrated I get with Caedmon when he doesn’t pay attention to me, how much more frustrated must God be with us sometimes? In Matthew 13, Jesus is telling parables and talks about using your ears to hear four times. Four times.

As much as I hate having to repeat myself, I need to remember that even Jesus repeated himself. Apparently people weren’t paying attention to him, either. Imagine that.

Can you imagine God sending us to “find our listening ears”? Maybe He does sometimes.