parenting is hard

A must read for every tired, discouraged mommy!

 

 



While I used to despair over my children's imperfect sleep patterns, rambunctious behavior, and failure to say please and thank you, I now realize there is a greater purpose---my refinement. Each struggle, each exhausting day, each behavioral problem, is an opportunity for me to grow in my faith. God uses my children as mirrors to reflect to me the sin I didn't realize resides in my heart. He is in fact using my own kids to refine and transform me.

Parenthood is tilling the soil in my heart, weeding out the sins that keep me from growing in faith. Some of the roots run deep and have entangled themselves around my heart. Before having children, I didn't realize how deeply rooted sins like impatience, selfishness, and irritability grew in the sin-fertilized soil of my heart. It took the challenges of raising children to reveal them to me.

But even as God reveals my sins of impatience, irritability, and selfishness, he also reveals his grace. When my children are easily distracted and I respond with impatience, not only does the Spirit reveal that sin to me, he also points out to me all the ways God is patient with my own distracted heart. When struggles in parenting reveal my sin of irritability, it also shows me God's endless forbearance. When the weeds of selfishness become apparent in my heart, I also see how selfless Christ was for me at the cross.

Time and again, the gospel of grace covers my sin, bringing me back to the cross of Christ. Jesus knew I could never be a perfect mom. He knew I couldn't respond to my children with love and grace at every moment. He knew I'd have days where I would fail. And that's why he came. At the cross he suffered for every time I am impatient, for every time I fail to teach and train my children, and for every time I don't love them as he loves them.

Read the complete blog post here
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/11/08/parenting-is-hard-for-a-reason/