Last week I promised to blog about what we parents are doing right. Husband Jerry and I were on an Empowered to Connect Conference high most of last weekend until we started the drive home.
Then then we began to ‘confess our sins one to another’. Each of us took turns listing all the ways we could have been a better parent. Do you find yourself in that boat? Do you constantly examine your parenting and when you find a new book, video or blog- you put your parenting under the negative microscope?
If so, you are not alone. I have ridden that bandwagon far too long. Let’s hop off together and head in a positive direction. I’m not talking about covering conviction with sugar-coated fake positive-isms. I’m talking about examining our parenting under the light of the Word. Let’s examine the ‘whatever is true, whatever is good, whatever has virtue, good report’ and think on these things. What sorts of actions can you give yourself a good report on? Moms don’t often ask themselves this question. Moms usually hyper focus on what they did wrong. We are like ancient monks crawling on hands and knees for penance. If we think we have done a good job we feel guilty for thinking it. What? Why? Where did this false humility come from?
It’s okay to be happy when we do the right thing. It is okay to have a sense of satisfaction. It is that sense of satisfaction that drives us to do the next good deed. Remember the morning you made homemade waffles for breakfast and the kids loved them? Or when you took them on the afternoon hike and stopped and listened every few feet when a child stopped to examine something? Remember when you spread the blanket out on the back deck and hauled a TV and popcorn out so the kids could have a drive-in? Remember when you let the kids set up a tent in the family room for two days? Or you let them jump in a mud puddle just because?
