On Days Like Today I Wish Freud Was Still Alive So I Could Punch Him in the Nose.

As much as we mock it, Freudian thought has been a powerful influence on the last several generations in the west. While it is a great blame shifter when we are narcissistic teens and young adults who want to accuse our parents for all the perceived ills in our lives, it sure bites you in the butt when you’re a parent. On days, like today, when my to do list was clearly written by someone who doesn’t have an infant and because I am behind on my arbitrarily assigned task for the day I snap at my doodles and lose my temper and speak sarcastically . . . on those days I hear the voice of Freud in the back of my mind saying to my grown up children, “Tell me about your mother.” I despair that I will be the key to their undoing.

It took me a while today to locate the proper voice to drown out that dead cigar smoking Austrian.

Here it is:

Psalm 119:9-16

⁹How can a young man keep his way pure?  By guarding it according to your word.
¹⁰ With my whole heart I seek you;   let me not wander from your commandments!
¹¹I have stored up your word in my heart,   that I might not sin against you.
¹²Blessed are you, O LORD;    teach me your statutes!
¹³With my lips I declare   all the rules of your mouth.
¹⁴In the way of your testimonies I delight   as much as in all riches.
¹⁵I will meditate on your precepts   and fix my eyes on your ways.
¹⁶I will delight in your statutes;   I will not forget your word.

There are two pieces of truth here for me:

1. I can only be the parent the Lord intends me to be by living in the word, hiding it in my heart, filling my thoughts with it, saturating myself in the words of God.

2. My children need lives that are lived in the word of God, saturated with the words of God, transformed by the power of the word of God.

I pray that if any one asks my grown children to tell them about their mother, they will answer, “She was a sinner, saved by grace, who pointed us to the word of God. Why?”

Take that, Freud.