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boys, children, dad, father, God, Jesus, mother, parent, parenting, teen, teenager, young aldult
There are moments in the life of being a parent when you don’t know what to do, when you feel like a complete failure. You feel like if parenting were a sport you would be tossed out of the game – disqualified.
I’ve been a parent for 19 years, 10 months, and 29 days now. One would think that after practicing a craft for such a long time that you would be considered an expert. With parenting the opposite is true. The older I get the less qualified I become. This must be the truth as my teenagers affirm it with the roll of their eyes and spouting off at my seeming inability to grasp what they are dealing with.
Often in this journey we have taken the road less traveled. We have chose to do the hard things. My wife has stayed at home the entire time, foregoing 20 years of income, in order to be there. We have homeschooled a good portion of that time, to create huge opportunities to explore their interest. And yet, I am finding out that my kids are going to make their own decisions regardless. They are men now, and quite honestly, this is a terrifying viewpoint knowing just how harsh the world can be.
I know that I will never stop being a dad, but as I am drawing to the end of getting them to their adulthood, I can’t help but wonder if it was enough – was it too much. My head is filled with a whole lot of second guessing. One thing is for sure, we weren’t handed any owner’s manual when left the hospital. We can say that we have done our best, we left it all on the court.
It’s a funny thing that anyone you ask has an opinion on child rearing. You should do THIS or you should do THAT. Even young couples with no kids at all can be complete experts on how to deal with an unruly kid in the grocery. The only thing that is predictable about being a parent is that it is completely unpredictable. Really, I don’t even feel worthy to write on the subject or anything else for that matter. That’s probably why I have posted very much in the past few months.
I asked my wife the other day “What’s the point of being a parent if our children won’t listen and they are just going to learn things the hard way?” Without hesitation she said “To draw you closer to Jesus”. We both laughed but it’s so true. So when it’s really hard, and difficult, and serious, and there are no answers – There’s just Jesus and prayer.
Psalm 1
The Way of the Righteous and the End of the Ungodly
1 Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.