Our job as parents

Gosh! The job of being a mom or dad is hard right?! Let's just be honest-- the stress of "Am I doing everything I am suppose to do to prepare this child to flourish as an adult?" is enough to make anyone go bananas!

This weekend a tragic and unfortunate event happened which affected my extended family. And right now I have a beautiful, sweet cousin who has had the life sucked out of her beautiful spirit because of this tragic event. She is hurting and will be for a long time. She needs prayer right now but I know she will take this very hard time in her life and use it to help so many one day.  I am very far removed from the situation so I am not speculating whether this could have been prevented or not. It is not my place to do that and I'm not sure we will ever know the answer on this side of Heaven.

What it did make me think about was as my kids grow into tweens and teens one day how can I help them lead a healthy life where ideas like suicide don't even cross their minds? It brought me to a powerful Facebook status update I read years ago from one of my favorite bloggers, Jon Acuff. It said something to this effect-- "I want to fill my daughters up with so much love that when the world knocks them over they will not empty." Good stuff, right?  So I just need to love them until I can't love them any more and they will be fine, right?  I think that's what we read from that quote on the surface but in reality that isn't the answer :/

It hit me, as I have heard time and time again, that I need to make sure that my kids know how much their HEAVENLY FATHER loves them. So why isn't my love enough? Because God chose an imperfect mommy and daddy to raise Emma and Mason... plain and simple! We will mess up, we already have but we still have a lot more messing up to do. So they must know that even when their mommy and daddy mess up-- yell and scream too much, lose patience, say words we don't mean to say, break promises-- they will fall back in the arms of an amazing God who will never let them down. Ever.

Depression in teens is real and the world is constantly telling them they aren't good enough. And then you add on the natural shortcomings of earthly parents and who do our kids have to turn to? The answer to that is rhetorical so I won't even go there... Instead we must teach them to lean on God, turn to Him in times of uncertainty, and most importantly communicate with Him through prayer.  We have to make God REAL for our kids so they will turn to Him. The more they see us love this "God" that as children they can't see the more they will love God. They must know that He IS the ultimate provider-- I mean He blessed Mom and/or Dad with a fabulous job, didn't He?

Life isn't a simple formula and even the parent who tries their hardest and loves them some Jesus can still produce a child who will stray and make bad choices.  That's one of those questions to ask Him when we reach those pearly gates one day. What I do know is prayer is powerful and we are in this parenting thing together so let's pray for each other, build each other up, help each other, and most importantly shine the love of Jesus to those sweet babies that He has trusted us to raise!