I was at my allergist's office the other day and John was in the waiting room with our girls. The nurse who performed my allergy testing (which is a whole different story) heard a baby fussing and commented on it. I said, "Oh, that's probably mine. I have a newborn baby girl." Of course I was proud and practically glowing with pride because I love bragging about my precious babies. She said, "Oh, I'm SO SORRY." Frazzled, I replied, "Why are you apologizing? I have a 2.5-year-old daughter in the waiting room also. I love being a mom." She repeated, "I'm sorry."
As the conversation continued, she basically polluted my mind with how horrible parenting is. I found out that she has a 16-year-old daughter and as she put it, "girls go down hill after infancy." I asked if she had any other children and she told me that "one was more than enough." I seriously was astonished because I have never heard someone talk about parenting like such a plague before. She listed all of the daughter's struggles with school and boys and behavior and the list went on. It was actually kind of depressing and really, offensive. I do NOT need sympathy in regards to the fact that I have two beautiful daughters.
In a world of so much dysfunction and with such twisted views of parenting and family, I am SO thankful that I have God's word to lean on. Being a mom is difficult enough on its own, let alone when somebody lends discouraging, unsolicited advice. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." While I know that proverbs are practical advice for daily situations, they are NOT guarantees like other things in the Bible, I still firmly believe that if I seek God and honor Him with my parenting decisions then He'll bless my feeble human efforts.
It is so scary to look out into the world and see what I'm up against- Teen pregnancies are at a sky-rocketing rate, more kids than not are engaging in recreational drug use and underage drinking, and so on. It freaks me out to look at my children and know that I am going to have to equip them with the tools to fight the worldly temptations that will be practically thrown at them. That's such a big responsibility and it's one that I do NOT take lightly. The Bible says that if anyone lacks for wisdom that they should ask for it. This whole situation has reaffirmed to me that I need to be petitioning God's throne for as much wisdom as possible if I am going to succeed at raising women of God!
1 comment:
My Dad says that people told him all the time that his children were going to break his heart. It's very sad when people's kids do, but that doesn't mean ALL children are going to do that!
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