So, I am a mom. A MOM!!!! What? When did that happen? I don't know about you, but there are days I feel beyond ill equipped to play the role of some one's mother, some one's mentor, some one's care taker.
God has gifted me with two little girls, little angels, little wild live wires of energy; that sometimes laugh so hard they cry and sometimes cry so hard I cry. The truth is...I am a mother and a daughter, a responsible adult and a fearful little girl. There are days I walk through motherhood and feel so empty that a strong wind might blow me away, and there are days I feel so whole that a hurricane couldn't move me.
Truth: It is hard to love a little child so much that you want to hold them tight forever, all the while knowing that one day you will have to let them go to be what God has called them to be.
Rest: Where I find rest in this reality of parenting, is in the reality that I also am constantly being parented. Not by my earthly parents, although that happens occasionally, but by my heavenly father who loves my little ones beyond the love that I am capable of giving.
Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 1:1-2
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. John 4:7-8
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. John 4:7-8
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
Effective parenting requires the love of Christ to run through us and to pour over our children. Parenting is frustrating, exhausting, both encouraging and discouraging, losing, winning, sharing, hoping, changing, growing, bending and breaking and bending again. Parenting is an act of growth in not only the children who are being brought up, but also in the one who is learning how to grow with them, the parent. In my experience every day God uses my children to teach me something new about myself, about them, and about the love that God has for me.
Thank you God for my girls who are constant reminders that your grace is enough to sustain me and grow them.
Effective parenting requires the love of Christ to run through us and to pour over our children. Parenting is frustrating, exhausting, both encouraging and discouraging, losing, winning, sharing, hoping, changing, growing, bending and breaking and bending again. Parenting is an act of growth in not only the children who are being brought up, but also in the one who is learning how to grow with them, the parent. In my experience every day God uses my children to teach me something new about myself, about them, and about the love that God has for me.
Thank you God for my girls who are constant reminders that your grace is enough to sustain me and grow them.