a parenting reminder to myself.

Hi friends.

Lean in a little closer.

There, that’s good.

I’ve got something so profound to say ……..

parenting is hard work.

Tremendously difficult work in the manner in which no soul alive can adequately explain.

Yes.  Right.  I know that wasn’t exactly profound.

I could list the ways in which it’s so difficult if that would help.

Long hours.  Selfless giving of time and energy.  Changing diapers full of excrement.

The worry.  The late nights.  The what-if’s and the why-did-I’s.

The inconvenience to time and schedule and cost.  The heartbreak and tears.  The fears.

The struggle to find consistency.  The struggle to find time alone.  The struggle to find the balance between grace and discipline.  The struggle to do a job good enough to satisfy your inner critic.

The pressure of judging your parenting by other people’s standards – or of judging your parenting by your own warped standard.

It’s such a messy business I’m sometimes surprised any one even attempts it.

And there’s not a human in existence who holds a baby in her arms and decides to parent that child who is the same person after the journey has begun.

You do not start with a baby and end with a grown up and remain the same parent.  It does not happen.

When parenting is especially a challenge – and let’s face it, when is serving someone else other than ourselves not a challenge? – I try to repeat truth over and over to myself until I begin to believe it.

What I need is not really advice.

I have wisdom God has given me through His word.

I need to act.

To persevere.

In the next half hour I need to say the kind words, perform the kind deeds, allow the God-honoring choices to dictate my actions.  I need to love like Jesus.

In the half hour after that I need to say the kind words, perform the kind deeds, allow the God-honoring choices to dictate my actions.  I need to love like Jesus.

In the following half hour – I need to do the same.

And then again in the next hour.

And the next.

And the next.

And when I go to sleep and wake up to greet another day I need to say the kind words, perform the kind deeds, allow the God-honoring choices to dictate my actions.  I need to love like Jesus.

And the next day I need to repeat that.

And the next day.

And the day after that.

Again.

And again.

Until I die.

The essence for me is my favorite Elisabeth Elliot quote – “Don’t worry about all the things you have to do – just do the next thing.”