I received Amy Chua’s book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother this past Monday and could hardly put it down. Our lives and parenting styles are vastly different; however, each page I read makes me think about why I do what I do and how I can do it better. Each night after reading I went to bed and thought about why I felt something huge was missing when taking the Tiger Mother approach to parenting; it dawned on me that, while the dedication and service to the children achieving their potential was unmatched, serving others was not a priority as the child became the extreme focus of each and every day. God gave me the gift of a servant’s heart, so it becomes a part of everything I do and what I try to teach my children.
At the same time as reading the book, I listened to a sermon from Pastor Mark Driscoll in his series on the gospel of Luke. Jesus just gets through casting out demons and healing the sick and in Luke 4:42-44 He moves on. As you can imagine, everyone wants Him to heal more people. He has the power to make everyone well but He does not. He tells them, “I must preach the kingdom of God
I have a very dear friend, Hannah, whom I met on a mission trip to Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine
In high school I wanted to be an architect. I received early admission to the school of my choice in their pre-architecture program but was persuaded to go into geological engineering because, at the time, there was not a job market for architects, and the engineering field was a prosperous one. I did not end up getting that engineering degree because in my junior year I hit a breaking point while working on a physics problem requiring me to calculate some sort of friction some sort of monkey caused by climbing up a rope. I could not care less and felt my chosen path was wrong for me. Always being the one to make rash decisions based solely on emotion, I switched to biology without a plan for what I would ever do with a biology degree. After MANY years of blowing aimlessly from job to job, I discovered teaching and found my calling. I had never thought of teaching before but now after teaching both high school sciences and preschool students, I cannot imagine any other field of work. Looking back, I would have been a great architect. I have a great aptitude for math (or at least I did at one point) and love design, building, and creating. I do not regret not following my calling back then, as I would not have the blessings and pure joy I have now, or maybe I would, it just would have been different.
So while Amy Chua pushes her children to pursue their potential, I have chosen to push my children to pursue their calling. Do I know what their calling is yet? Honestly, no. But I do have an idea of what their calling is not. It is awesome Amy had the courage to write such a book and give us an insight to the hows and whys of being a Chinese Mother. Reading this will make me push myself and my children a little harder, but in their pursuit of calling instead of that which the world deems as potential.
