From a parent who fails

Last week I knew how to parent. This week I find this no longer true.

Toddler screams can be heard over a straight hour because the one year old, who used to love nap time, no longer feels a need for it.

Behaviors that were never there are suddenly the new normal and here I am still groggy from a night of interrupted sleep, in no state to take them on.

The worst part?

The guilt that sits in the pit of my stomach wondering if I’m doing it all so very wrong.

What if I discipline when I should pull them close? And vice versa?

Will my now, just one and a half year old someday look on me with bitterness for the moments I’m currently questioning with agony?

Or will he one day know just how little I know about doing just exactly the right thing at the right time?

These are the thoughts swirling in the mind of a woman who felt confident as a parent just a week ago.

But the truth is, we do not know what we are doing.

The truth is, we are making an absolute fool of ourselves nearly everyday. And we are falling short and causing countless opportunities for bitterness years down the road and the great truth in it all is that we are powerless of ever doing it all right because we ourselves have so very much wrong in us.

But that is not the end of the story and that is not where we are left.

Because after one hour of the exhausting fight and the sobs that will not die off, I carry the toddler to my own bed, curl up in a ball and sob a little myself.

In the next moment, a chubby arm wraps itself around my neck and I feel wet, slobber-filled kisses placed on my cheek and my forehead.

I open my eyes to the worried look of my one year old who starts talking gently to me in his own made up chatter.

In a moment of hopelessness I am reminded of grace from my toddler.

We both are quieted and I am reminded —there is hope for the imperfect mother because there is a perfect Father who longs to fill every gap and do the work deeper than any human parent can do in their precious children’s hearts.

 We do not have to fear, when the Perfect One stands ready to help us in every time of need.

My children do not need a mother with pristine decision-making abilities, or else our Creator would have made this possible.

My children do not need a mother who understands the various complexities of toddler emotions and teenage transitions, or else He would have provided perfect intuition as one of my qualities.

He gives all that is needed by giving Himself.

What my children need the very most from me is a mother who is devoted to prayer and determined to keep her gaze fixed on Jesus.

He may one day look back in bitterness, but the likelihood drops when he is witness to countless moments of honest and total dependence on the grace and wisdom of an unfailing God.

We ushered them in, in the midst of all of our failings.

We point their gaze to Christ when we daily show them our own bended knees.

Because contrary to how we’re fooling ourselves they will never be fooled for a moment into thinking we have it all together and we are confident in the path we choose.

The little eyes that watch us day in and day out will inevitably know better than this at some point along the way.

So we do best to invite Him into the thick of it. We do best to take chubby, toddler hands in ours and pray together in the midst of it.

We do best to be openly incapable to show them that we are not masters ourselves but completely and desperately dependent on a source outside of ourselves.

These precious lives are first His and I do my very best parenting when I learn to daily entrust them and myself to His perfect care.