Giving Up

Parenting is hard.  Anyone who says otherwise either has a child less than a week old or is lying.  Certainly there are moments it feels blissfully easy.  There are times it's rewarding and wonderful, fun and exciting.  

But in between those moments are the hard ones.  The heartwrenchingly painful moments of watching your child hurt.  The immensely difficult moments of having to discipline - to be God's tool in molding a child to become more like Him.  The physically exhausting moments of nursing a baby in the middle of the night, comforting a sick child in the wee hours of the morning.  The emotionally exhausting moments that stretch into hours, days, weeks.  

God uses parenting to stretch and grow us in a way nothing else can.  We are brought to our knees as we question.  Question ourselves, our worth, our very identity.  Question Who God is, what He is doing and where He is!!  We are terrified, of the unknown, of the future, of ourselves and our human nature.  

And at some point, we want to give up.  Today I did.  I wanted to give up on my life.  On the monotony of the laundry, the dishes, the vacuuming, the feeding and wiping and dressing these little people.  But mostly trying to make the hard decisions, trying to figure out how to reach their hearts.  Trying to pick up the shattered pieces of myself after they shouted, "You hate me, you hate me, you hate me!"  

And I did.  I gave up.  I came to the end of myself and cried out to God that I could not do it, that He must have made a mistake giving me these children.  I told Him that I was spent, exhausted, that I could not go on.    

And I realized that it is Right, it's True that I cannot parent these children on my own.  I don't have the emotional energy, the physical energy, the wisdom, the anything.  I am utterly unworthy.  He uses these moments to remind me that I am absolutely dependent on Him.  

And He speaks to me.  If I am willing to listen, He is always speaking to me.  Sometimes He gives me a scripture, sometimes a friend who can encourage.  Sometimes it just looking at those sleeping children at night or feeling a tiny toddler's hand on my cheek while she gets as close as possible to whisper some secret to me.  Sometimes I'm convicted.  Sometimes I'm comforted.  Sometimes He reminds me that this relationship parallels the relationship He has with me - that I am not very unlike that child who is ungrateful, who is disrespectful, disobedient and defiant, but yet, through it all, is loved deeply, unconditionally, with forgiveness always waiting.  

Today, after a day that felt like battle, He spoke to me with a gift of a sincere apology and seven precious cents.  One nickel and two pennies put into my hand with an explanation, "I don't really want to give these to you, but I do want to give them to you.  It's not too little and it's not too much.  I want to say I'm sorry."  

He spoke healing into my soul and into our relationship.  He reminded me that He is walking the whole way with me and when I come to the end of myself, that's where He is.  That's where He will always be.