I was sitting here pondering what to write about and I looked up to see my beautiful daughter exploring our living room. I instantly broke out in a huge grin. How could I not? My children are SUCH a blessing!
Trevor and I often say that we don't really need tv since becoming parents. We get a huge kick out of just sitting back and watching Jake and Lucy. Seeing them explore things for the first time, try new things, come up with new ideas and new words or phrases, always proves to be funny or adorable, often both!
While being a parent is by far the hardest and most consuming thing that a person can ever do, it is also by far the most rewarding and important thing a person can ever do. It's times like this when I am reflecting at the privilege I have been given to raise these little blessings, that I wonder how so many people throw away and abuse this privilege. So many parents are tuned out, too busy, or just not interested in their children.
It is so sad to think of what many kids are missing out on by having a checked out parent. Perhaps worse, is what the parents are missing out on by not realizing just how blessed they are to have such amazing little people to love and cherish. Children are a gift. Plain and simple. It doesn't matter when they come, or how they come, they are a gift.
I for one am very thankful for my adorable little gifts. I am thankful that I get to be their mom. That I get the privilege of teaching them new things, watching them grow into little people, with big personalities and comforting them when they need a snuggle and some love
"checked out" parenting comes from a lack of right priorities, the first being God and following his will for your life. Without God, you feel unfulfilled, and are constantly searching for that "something" to fulfill you and give you satisfaction. The result is that you loose focus on what God has already blessed you with, which in many women's lives, is their children. This is spoken from my own experience, it took me a long time to learn (and am still learning) to trust in God's wisdom and find fulfillment in His will for my life...to not constantly be searching for more, but wait for God to GIVE me more and focus on that which he has already given me.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent book on this topic is Women on the Edge, by Cindi McMenamin. I was really blessed by this book.
That is very true Hilary. Society tries to make us feel like if we are JUST a mom, we are not doing anything meanful and worthwhile. Society has it so wrong, what could be more important then shaping our children into loving, caring, good, christian members of society? Trev and I always get weird looks when we talk about loving our kids and the fact that we choose to focus on having a family and being good parents over worldly success. They think we are a little weird when we talk about managing
ReplyDeleteon just his income so that we can focus on our children, and I can stay home with them. We have found such a blessing in this way of thinking!