My Best Bit of Parenting Advice

“Holiness is not about getting right and wrong perfected, but it’s about living in the Light, living without anything hidden.” Bill Thrall

I had a friend text me recently and ask if I would be her parenting mentor.

I laughed to myself and texted back, “Sure, but  it might be the blind leading the blind!”

Ever since her text, I’ve been thinking about parenting and what I could offer her, what I’ve learned, and what has been helpful for me as I do my best with my three babes. I’m not great at teaching and training my children, I get impatient and irritated too easily. I don’t spend enough time with them at bedtime, and I’m not as fun as I’d like to be with them. But there is one thing that God has impressed upon me that I try to impress upon them, and it is this:

Be in the Light.

Don’t hide; never hide.

Your ugly is never so ugly that you can’t be loved or forgiven. Also? I’ve got a lot of ugly of my own. You aren’t alone.

You’ve also got a whole lot of beautiful, because you were created in the image of God.

You are loved no matter what. Nothing you could do could change my love for you. On your best day or your worst day, I love you the same.

Nothing you could say or do could make me love you more or less.

You can always talk to me, about anything; approach me with confidence, because I’m on your team.

You are pleasing to me because you are my child.

You will mess up, and you’ll do it a lot, but that’s okay. I mess up a lot, too. We’re in this together; it’s why we need Jesus.

We need Jesus.

You and me both, kid. Because we will never get “it” right in this life. There will be loose ends and trouble and sin swirling all around us, but if we hold onto Jesus, we’ll make it.

And grace.

A million times you will mess up, and a million times I will forgive you. And please forgive me, too, for my million mess-ups.

If we carry on in grace, and stay in the light, we can do this thing called life. And we can do it fairly well.

So there it is, my big parenting advice. It’s really all I’ve got. But I think it’s everything, because it’s how the Father loves us.

“…to all who did receive him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”  John 1:12

Love, SM