• Elizabeth Spencer
1. God has a special place in His heart for parents.
“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” (Isaiah 40:11)
God invented parenthood, and what God creates, He cares for. God sees us both as parents and His children, and His heart toward us is relational and tender. Throughout Scripture, God often helps us see who He is and what He does through a parenting lens. He does not forget us: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15). He lavishes good gifts on us: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11).
2.You do not have to parent today on yesterday’s strength.
“The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” (Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT)
The physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional strength to do the divinely ordained work of parenting is not a lump sum God hands us when our children come into the world and then expects us to ration out for the rest of their lives. God is big on us trusting Him one day at a time because He is big on faith, and step-by-step dependence requires more faith than having God’s provision tucked away in a spiritual bank account we can withdraw from at will.
3. There is a season for everything.
“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT)
My younger sister was describing what life is like with three of her four children in basketball and the fourth cheering for the sport. I joked that she must need a spreadsheet to coordinate who has games, who needs to be picked up, who needs to be dropped off, who needs to be fed, and whose uniform needs to be washed first. Meanwhile, I told her that I’d been spending a lot of time in the evenings watching the winter Olympics, of which she said she’d seen none.
I well remember the spreadsheet days when I felt as though I did nothing so much as drive children around and make endless snacks. While I may miss those days, I do not have regrets about them because when I was in them, I was fully in them. This is the opportunity of the seasons God appoints in our lives, that when we are in a season, we embrace its joys and persevere through its challenges so that when we are out of it, we have the satisfaction of knowing we made the most of it.
4. While you are a parent, you are still Abba’s child.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)
I’m blessed to live not far from my parents, but sometimes, I still stay overnight at their house just for the fun of it. Whenever I do, my mom will order me to the couch and cover me up with a blanket and make me a favorite meal while my dad feeds the fire and make sure the house is toasty warm. After a few minutes of this royal treatment, I usually joke, “Remind me why I ever left home?”
I am a middle-aged adult and a mother of young adult children, and yet in all the best ways, I am still my parents’ child. And as parents ourselves, we are still Abba’s children. He has chosen us through divine adoption, and He still bids us to rest in His presence, to be fed by Him, to be warmed by His love.
