Parenting is often a school of humility.
Just when you’ve found the perfect strategy or product or idea, something changes, and it doesn’t work any more. You have to try something new. Maybe even swallow your pride and do that thing you swore you’d never do.
Mothering in particular can feel like management, as we seek to control daily chaos. The trouble is that children are people, not problems to be solved. And people are dynamic. They change, the problem changes, everything feels askew.
Love, that ever fixed mark, compels us to go beyond. Sometimes it calls us to find another fixed mark, to figure out what we really want for our kids that circumstances cannot change. The sort of lofty idea that is hard to quantify or assess daily, like doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with their God.
Frankly that can be a little bit scary. Having children who eat vegetables is the sort of goal you might really reach and know you have, and there is a sense of accomplishment in that. But I hope to find a much greater joy at the end of this journey.
You wouldn’t think parental ponderings would resonate with a childless gal like me, but this was so well written. Seriously.
Thanks Jamie.
My kids are now all grown and off to and graduated from college. As a stay-at-home mom, I did my best to guide them and encourage them. But I find now that despite all my efforts, they are going to have to make mistakes and learn from them, however much I’d like to shield them from pain.