Parenting – finding the fun

When I first saw my new baby girl, I was in love. But less than two years later, after I’d retrieved her from climbing to the top shelf of the pantry and cleaned up the 400th mess for the morning, I found myself in a fed-up heap on the floor.

‘GOD! I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE!’

What happened between the moment I fell in love with my child and the moment I found myself on the floor, exhausted, depressed and defeated?

Life and motherhood is what happened. I’d given everything I had, and still, being a mother seemed to require more.

As I lay there at the lowest place I’d ever been, a verse came wafting into my consciousness. ‘Be still and know that I am God’. In my heart, it was translated as ‘You’ve been relying on yourself. You have been fighting so hard to stay in control. No wonder you’re exhausted. Why don’t you let me take over?’

God showed me how to rely on his strength – and not my own. On that first day, on the radio, in a book and in the words of a friend, I heard: ‘God is faithful’.

And my eyes opened up to ‘angels’ with skin on. I opened up to the wisdom of others only too willing to offer loving, helpful advice and care. They taught us about grace: that our kids aren’t perfect and neither are we – but God loves us anyway.

Now, years later, a little verse still wafts back into my consciousness, ‘Be still and know that I am God’. And I’m reminded that God is and always will be … faithful.

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