Parenting is not easy

I have been deliberately silent on my blog for a couple of months, apart from just feeling overwhelmed with busyness, I have felt overwhelmed with my role as a mother.

I have been confronted with so many of my weaknesses, struggles, sin lately...

I am thankful though for what God is teaching me about Himself. I have come to the conclusion that motherhood is definietly not something that comes natural to me (something I mention often!) and that my struggle with it is part of how God is sanctifying me, and that I will spend every day, for the rest of my life coming to Him depending on Him totally to help me!

I was encouraged by this in, Gospel Powered Parenting - by William P Farley, under the subheading, Parenting is not easy.

First you cannot be a perfect parent. I opened with the story of our troubles to emphazise this point. If you could parent perfectly, your children might not need a Saviour. But you are not perfect. From where you sit, you cannot even see perfection. Therefore, your children will desperately need Christ.

Your sins, your failings, and inadequacies produce conflict with your children and misunderstandings with your spouse. At times you will deeply feel this inadequacy.

In addition to your inadequcies, there are external stresses. Some of your children might die prematurely, others might enter the world with congenial defects, or still others, like ours, might go through difficult stages of rebellion. Some will be bright, talented, or good-looking. Others will be slow, average, or unattractive. Some will have easy personalities. It will take all your perserverance and tenacity to love others.

...Because parenting is difficult, and becuase you are imperfect, you will need the grace that comes to you through the gospel. God will use these problems to deepen your dependance on him. You will experience stress and obstacles. They will happen so that when your child comes to saving faith, your boasting will be in Christ, not your own best efforts. Like Paul, you will say, "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the GRACE OF GOD that is with me" ( I Cor 15:10)

You will need grace, and you will need to know where to get it. Precisely because you are so flawed, the gospel, the saving work of Christ, must be your refuge.

I have been meditiating on the gospel and grace, so much lately, I know He is teaching me to live by His grace alone, and to remember He will always give me the grace I need at the time I need it.