Glimpses of Grace

More, this time from my OWN department of obvious information: Parenting is hard. If you've been a parent for 30 seconds, you have that figured out! Whether a parent by birth or adoption, just getting the child into your arms is a LOT of work.

Lately I have thought about the stages of parenting. The diaper and pre-school years are boot camp. You are pushed to your physical limits of frustration and exhaustion, wondering why in the world you signed on for this gig, with giggle fits and jelly hugs to remind you. In later single-digit years, you're on a little bit of a roll. Maybe as if you have received your assignment after boot camp. You have some drills to ready you for combat, but for the most part you've got a little bit of a respite from the physical demands and mental exhaustion of boot camp. Later, I have come to realize, you get sent for combat duty.

My children are currently 10 and 12. We are on combat duty. Not combat with the children, of course (though somedays we forget who the enemy is). Combat against the lure and attraction this world offers, fighting against what "everyone" is "doing" or "thinks is cool" or "gets to see" or thinks is okay. I feel like I have come into a time of parenting when I must stay on high alert at all times, listening to each piece of conversation for teachable moments, reminding moments of Whose we are and Who we believe, as well as what's really important. Most times I feel waved away like an irritating fly, or just as understood as Charlie Brown's teacher. And I confess to a mother's constant struggle: worry. I try to pray instead of worry, but I worry a LOT about how this war will end up.

Recently, however, the Lord has allowed me tiny glimpses to be reminded that His grace extends to parenting. I have been reminded that He can take my pathetic little widow's mite of parenting skills and turn my little blessings into wholly His. And, of course, the temptation when I'm not worrying, is to tithe some of His glory and be prideful that any of this is because of things I have done. But the reality is that anything the Lord does with my children is in spite of me, not because of me. So, for now, I am ever-so-thankful for the glimpses of His grace I see in my growing children. I had to put it here to remember -- and remind me -- that this parenting business, this combat duty, doesn't rest in my hands. When I try to make it into a work of my hands, it will fail. When I place it firmly in HIS hands, He will make it (and my children) into a thing of beauty far more than I can.

If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm;
though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand. Psakm 37:23,24