Falling on His Grace

There it is again. That voice that's telling me I am a failure as a parent. Her temper tantrum - my fault. The way he is talking to his sister - my fault. Somehow, if I had done a better job these last thirteen years, my kids would not have the behaviors and difficulties they have. I am not a natural parent. My mom was - or so it seemed to me as a child, and still seems to me now as watch her as a grandma. I am not my mom. Getting down on the floor to play is not me. I don't like to dance to kids music. I am too serious. And I yell. I try not to, but it builds up, and eventually it comes out. I am not the perfect parent that I want to be, nor will I ever be no matter how hard I try. But I have always done my best, even when my best was not pretty. I have carried some baggage into my motherhood journey. I have struggled through it, working on being a better mother all the while. By God's grace, I am growing into motherhood. It is becoming more natural, though not e...

“Oh, Lord, please make up for where I lack.”  How that prayer feels like a constant companion of mine through my days raising my five, children. It is a constant companion, especially, on those days when I struggle the most, whether with impatience, fatigue, or general irritability. It is a constant companion when I see how much I have to accomplish and how little of me there is to go around, when I feel as if I have bitten off more than I can chew. Motherhood has a way of bringing out our insufficiencies and making them known. We are imperfect human beings, in charge of raising children into competent and loving adults.  Yet, how can I teach them to be competent when I myself am not always so competent? How can I teach them to be loving when I act impatient and frustrated? Our faults surface too easily on some days and threaten to unravel all the good we have done and the patience we have shown with such painstaking effort. There are days when I am absolut...

3 years, 6 months, 26 days. That's how long it has been since I posted. And I have to be honest, I wasn't sure if I would be back. I have been trying to write, though not here. In this most recent season of life, two beautiful children - both girls - have been born into our family. I have, fatigued, sent the boys back to public school for a year and have then taken them back out to homeschool another year only to become fatigued again. It was a blessed and successful year, but I left that year wondering if I will ever homeschool again. That era of my life may be over, but, rather than being upset, I am grateful for the time having homeschooled and at peace with moving onto another chapter. This time, rather than sending the kids back to public school, we are sending two of the middle children to a small Catholic school, and the oldest is home but taking online, live classes through another Catholic school. To delegate that portion of the responsibility of teaching my chil...