Monday, March 28, 2011

Parenting = Path of Doubts

I no longer have infants and have to wonder if the reason they are crying is because they're hungry, need a new diaper, or are colicky, or are mad, or are hurt, or. . . but that doesn't mean I now know what I'm doing with these older children.

This is still new territory for me as a parent.  I travelled it as a child and now have an adult's perspective, but I still don't know what I'm doing.  I still think I'm ruining my children, not preparing them for the future, and am forgetting to teach them some valuable lesson.

Parenting is just plain hard.  It stinks (in different ways at different times). It is a cross to bear.

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

4 comments:

Susan said...

I hear ya! I get so jealous of those parents who seem to have a plan, who know their goals, who are confident of what they're doing and how they're doing it. And I'm just muddling along, making one mistake after the next, trying to cope with inadequacies in so many different areas of life, praying that God will sort it all out in the end and make something beautiful out of all my screw-ups, hoping that He will keep my children as His children in spite of having given them me for their mother.

Echoing you, Glenda:
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Laura said...

Smiling...with my eyes welling up in tears...I'm with Susan, never feeling like I knew anything I was doing, trying to trust God that it would all work out...and you know what, for Susan's kids and my own...somehow it did. It doesn't mean there won't be hard times...times we doubt, times when we don't see the whole picture, times when we or a child may stumble. But we know where to go (and He knows where to find us) in those good times and bad...and He does have mercy on His children.

Anonymous said...

Amen and Amen. So true, Glenda.

Jeannette

Glenda said...

Thank you Susan, Laura, and Jeannette. It is nice to be reminded that others think the same.