I'm in the thick years of parenting. I mean, when the kids were little, I was in the trenches. Every day was a shovel and hardpan soil and the need to dig out a huge ditch just to get through the diapers and getting a kid a drink and making sure they didn't wreck the house. I'm tellin' ya, that was hard times. But they were so cute! And we were happy.
Now they've aged and I've moved onto the "consultant" phase where they seem to need me a lot more mentally/spiritually/emotionally than they used to. It's good, but I'm tellin' ya, it's hard times too. But they're so cute! And I'm really happy. Except when they aren't.
Sometimes I just don't know what to say when they ask me a horribly difficult question. Or I see them experiencing something I never had to go through. I am at a loss. It's scary, too. I mean, I submit that you don't know terror until you are watching a kid walk into what could potentially be a Choice-Making situation and you don't know if they're armed for the moment.
This week, I was studying some talks by President Russell M. Nelson. I've been reading through all of them systematically, and a quote hit me like bricks. It related exactly to my phase of life as a parent. I had to read it several times and kind of unpack it, because it's pretty thick with meaning. I'm going to break it into lines, since it was all in one paragraph.
"Families deserve guidance from heaven. Parents
cannot counsel children adequately from personal experience, fear, or sympathy.
"But when parents
face children as would the Creator who gave them life, parents will be endowed
with wisdom beyond that of their own.
"Wise mothers and fathers will teach
members of their family how to make personal decisions based upon divine law.
"They will teach
them that 'this life is the time … to prepare to meet God.'
"They will teach
them that decisions of a moral and spiritual character cannot be
based on freedom to choose without accountability to God for those choices.
"With that
understanding, parents and children will be rewarded with strength of
character, peace of mind, joy, and rejoicing in their posterity."
(Here's a link to the rest of the talk.)
This quote really helped me. No, I can't counsel my kids based on my own experience. These are different times, difficult times. I grew up in a place different from where I'm raising my kids. But that's okay, because there is guidance from heaven, and I can access greater wisdom. And so can my kids!
I'm so thankful to God for His care for my family.
