The Discipline of Pain in Parenting

Reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections. First posted at SharperIron Nov. 26, 2008.

My foibles as a father are numerous and varied. My intuitive responses to the rapid-fire ordeal of parental decision-making routinely unveil my native blockheadedness.

With this disclaimer firmly staked, I nonetheless testify to the remarkable benefit I gain from imitating my heavenly Father’s example as He nurtures His children. I am discovering that such imitation provides not only wisdom for parenting, but also becomes itself a means by which to better understand my Father.

For instance, by following God as parental exemplar, I am learning that skillful parenting occasionally commends the discipline of choosing our children’s pain over their pleasure. Living in an affluent, fun-at-any-cost culture, our default modus operandi as parents is to remove every pain as quickly as possible, or at least to reduce it as far as is feasible. But I find that God’s parental instincts flow much deeper and commend to us the capacity of permitting our children to suffer for their good (2 Cor. 1:3-9; 12:1-10; Heb. 12:4-13).

To illustrate, I once picked up my eight-year-old son from school over the lunch hour for a special father-son excursion to a local sporting goods store. I purchased a junior size basketball for him, and we dribbled and bounce-passed the new ball on the sidewalk in front of the store for several minutes (just to make sure it worked, of course) before I took him back to school. From that day forward, my son and that ball were virtually inseparable partners.

But one afternoon, to his utter horror, the ball came up missing. Upon careful investigation it became clear that little brother had left it on the driveway. Since our driveway and street double as a ski hill in the winter, it did not take long to conclude the obvious: the basketball had rolled away and was forever lost!

To my son’s credit he never said a word to the offending sibling, but he was deeply troubled. That was his special ball—the one dad had purchased for him that wonderful afternoon he was emancipated from school—his perfectly sized, inseparable friend.

Seeing how bravely he was trying to respond to his loss, my heart was filled with an overwhelming desire to remove his pain immediately. But when he issued the inevitable request for a new ball, I choked down the lump in my throat and said gently but firmly, “No.” Taking a cue from the methodology of my heavenly Father, I hoped to permit the pain in my son’s heart to open his ears to God’s truth. (Does God get that lump-in-the-throat feeling when He permits us to suffer for our good?).

As the reality of his loss settled over him, my son offered no complaint. He hung his head and fighting back tears began to walk away. I called him back to my side. He buried his face in my pant leg and sobbed. Eventually he choked out the words, “I would do anything to get that ball back.” My teachable moment had arrived.

We sat on the porch swing. I held him close and quietly affirmed how hard and how painful it is to lose something we love so very much. But we must understand that God is in control of everything and that He has a perfect plan for our lives.

“I cannot tell you what God intends,” I said, “but I do know that He loves us enough to teach us how to lose things that are very important to us. A few years ago your mamma lost her mommy to cancer. She loved your grandma so very much, but she lost her. She would do almost anything to get her back if she could, but she cannot.”

“And someday, Son, you will lose something far more precious to you than your basketball. Someday you will likely lose your daddy, and that will hurt far worse. By allowing you to lose your basketball, God is probably preparing you to handle much bigger losses in the future. He loves you very much, Son, and you must learn to trust His wisdom even if you do not understand exactly what He is doing.”

Those were precious moments on that porch swing. And I have my heavenly Father alone to thank they were not spent in a sporting goods store canceling pain. In that teachable moment I enjoyed an unprecedented degree of poignancy and intimacy with my son. And in that teachable moment, I saw more clearly the nature of my heavenly Father’s love for me.

“For the moment,” He has told me, “all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11). O for the childlike faith to cry without doubting, to weep in His arms in simple trust. O for the wisdom to realize that although I cannot fully discern all that my Father intends when He chooses my pain, He always acts for my good (Lam. 3:27-33; Rom. 8:28-29).

As I write this essay, I can hardly wait to purchase another ball for my son; but I am still resisting, for now. I await a teachable moment when joy, not disappointment, will be the lesson of the day—a joy enhanced by the endurance of pain. “Soon, my dear son, soon.” And there too I hear the echo of my heavenly Father’s counsel as I endure the trials He wisely assigns for my good: “Soon, my precious son, soon; joy comes with the morning” (cf. 2 Cor. 4:17-18; Psa. 30:5).