Before The Sun Rises

Parenting. The one role where you learn yourself and grow yourself as you begin to disciple your own littles (and/or teens).

The anxious thoughts that leave you feeling full blown anxiety. The act and need of control.

The running paces and mind racing. The heart pounding and the thoughts swirling.

I began to sense anxiety creeping in the past few days along with worry and control.

The need to control every detail to not allow mistakes to happen. To not let the mistakes I once walked in and my children to not follow also.

Yet, that is a mistake already happening. Needing to control something that is beyond our control.

As a mom, I see my children and the friends they surround themselves with only to feel led to pray for them all. And that is where it hits. Where I sense them feeling unworthy, unloved, seeking attention, and wanting to fit in. Wanting to be independent yet reliant on their parents.

I really want to protect my children in all they do, with everything I can. If I can. But if I continue to place a bubble wrap around them not allowing them to fall once, when they do fall out in the real world, it’ll not only be a soft fall but a much harder fall because I never allowed them to fall. I was always there to cover and rescue.

Somehow, right now, in this particular season, I have this sense of letting go and laying down the old and “need of.” And in one particular area, I felt to let go of the need to over protect. If I continue to run to them right away when things fall apart, I’m telling them I am their rescuer. If I continue to figure out their problems for them, I am telling them I am their problem fixer and can fix anything. If I am placing a shield of protection over them, I am telling them I am their protector. And if I am making their choices, I am showing that I am in control of their life.

This leads to showing them I am Jesus….

But I am not.

I need Jesus everyday in my own life. And as a mother, my duty, my job, my role, is to point them to the ONLY one who can rescue them, shape them, mold them, fix them, love them more than me, who can protect them and show He is the ultimate giver of all good things.

It’s hard to balance this parenting role out. It honestly is down right frustrating if I am being honest, but it’s… as I felt it heavy in this season… time I learn to let go and let God take control and learning to sit at His feet as He teaches me to parent how He wants me to.

I can’t expect to lay my parenting down, surrounding my children partially when I am here picking it right back up. This parenting role must be laid down daily, every morning before I wake, praying fervently for them before the sun rises and touches the hills and mountains.

If I am not praying for my children before the day begins, who is? We, as mothers, are called, and gifted, to pray over our children, to speak life into their present life and their future.

I have found recently, the more I spend time with the Lord, the more I take a look around and breathe, the more I see Gods hand at work not only in my life, but my children and husband as well.

As much as I want to hover over and protect my child from the madness in this world, I know without a doubt they were born for such a time as this. As much as my flesh wants to be afraid, as much as my flesh wants to give into throwing the towel when its hard parenting in this era…. my Spirit raises up and gives me the strength to make one more step. And with each step I take, the closer I stay with Jesus, the clearer the vision I see.

Parenting is never done alone. Jesus is always right there beside me and beside you. He won’t leave us alone in the parenting and that is one thing I know for certain. Heck, I am grateful for this because without Jesus, my mind would be lost.

The one word the world hates but the one word the Lord highlights, balance. There has to be balance in parenting, in listening, in disciplining and it all being done in love.

If we don’t balance the parenting, discipling, disciplining, sitting ourselves at the feet of Jesus and learning…. our hearts and minds will continue to worry and wander off.

But with the right balance…. peace floods in, joy settles in its place, gratitude takes home, and parenting…. not only becomes just you (and of course your spouse) but it becomes partnered with Jesus as you parent.

What I am learning is, if I truly want my children to succeed, not in the worlds success but in the Father’s, I must be willing to lay down my life, lay down their life in a way that says “okay I am not in control of their life, I am only here to lead and help steward them to you Lord,” then, only then, am I able to see fruit be born from it followed by peace that covers me knowing the Creator, the All Sustaining God is with me and them.

Though this era seems different, hard to see good coming out of it, we can know for certain, God never leaves us in the hard places but rather, He sends Jesus to walk with us through it.