The Parenting Dance

Mother and Child by a River with Wild Roses
Mildred Butler, 1900

Trying to keep my three year old from using her injured (inner) wrist is a full time job. I can take up regular blogging again after her stitches come out next weekend. The wrist is an area that naturally gets a lot of movement and I have to watch her activity level closely to achieve the best possible healing. We are so thankful her veins weren't involved! The scene could have been far worse.

Last Thursday, June 7, she bent down slightly to look at a critter and lost her balance on the way up, because of her arthritic knees. She used a glass critter cage to try and break her fall. (10-gallon fish tank, dry, empty, but turned on its side by Paul to allow some bees to escape). Her wrist went right through the glass, shattering the cage and giving her a nasty skin flap wound, which needed four stitches. It was very close to veins but didn't hit any and didn't bleed much at all.

Maybe because I have a family history of anxiety--or maybe just because I'm a mom--any accident makes me anxious for weeks. I begin to feel as though I'm helpless in protecting my family. My mind switches to overdrive as it considers all the possible mishaps.

While I'm anxious this time too, I also feel a certain assurance from the Lord regarding Beth's condition. Her balance may not be right until her arthritis goes into permanent remission. She is always at greater risk of injury. But the Lord protected her. I feel as though he'll let her stumble, but not fall--so to speak. There may be more scary scenes, but I must trust Him to again protect her.

I can try harder to keep any glass or metal out of her playing environment, but I can't go overboard and take childhood joys away. She needs to fully live, regardless of her arthritis.

Parenting is as much about letting go, as it is about conscientiousness. It's a fine, delicate dance. It's clinging to God, the true owner of my children, and trusting His plans.

It's so hard. And such a privilege.

The greatest mothering blessing comes to those who lay it all at His feet. When we take it all back--the full weight of it--we fail and make ourselves, and our children, miserable.

If mothering is exhausting you, as it has me lately, maybe our sin is in thinking it all depends on us?

1) Pray much. 2) Point the way to Him. These two things, we must do.

Prayer Time: Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of children, for the gift of mothering. Help us to relinquish control over to you, as we parent the children you so graciously trust us with. May we remain in You, so we can point the way. Heal us of anxiety and stress over outcomes, whether for next week, or for the next decade. Teach us to lay it all at your feet. Come alongside us and teach us to pray, and to point the way. May we never crowd You out, as we seek to give the best to our children. You are the best.


In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.