Faith Required

Remember that saying about best laid plans? I feel like this is the story of my life. I recently made a decision (much like flipping a coin but it took a lot of debating in my head) as to which writing project I was going to focus on. See, my problem isn’t lack of ideas … isn’t getting words on paper … but that’s not the point of this post. Okay, so after much debate (some of which hubs had to listen to), I decided to focus on gathering stories from this blog to put together a book on parenting. Of course I’m no supermom; I was just thinking, “hey, I’ve been doing this for a while now and they’re still alive, so why not, right?”

Wrong.

Over the past couple of weeks (pretty much since the coin flip) , we’ve had some …erm, issues … arise that have thrown me for a loop. Parenting is hard, y’all. There’s no instruction manual. Every kid is different. Yada, yada, yada. So what do we, as parents, do when something comes up and we feel blindsided or out of our depth? Where do we turn?

To God.

Seriously, I don’t know how I would have made it lately without faith, without knowing that God is for me … and my kids. (He’s for you, too!) Praise music helps me remember this. Even when I wanted to cry, I’d feel so much joy driving down the road listening to Lauren Daigle.

These past weeks have reminded me that my children, even when they drive me crazy, are blessings. God entrusted them to me. But He didn’t just say, “Have at it; you’re on your own.” He’s with me every step of the way. Rather than leaning in to Him only when the going gets tough; I should keep Him at the center of every step. He should be on my mind and in my heart not only when I tell my children how much I love them, but also when I’m disciplining or having the tough conversations.

And I need to be sure I tell them how much He loves them too: how His love is infinitely more perfect and true than mine could ever be even though I’m their mother.

We don’t need to be super-parents. We just need to trust in Him.