By the Strength of the Lord

How are you raising your children? To the best of your ability? That's how I raised mine. I mean, who wouldn't, right? Well, I wouldn't. Not if I had it to do all over again. 

When I was raising my children, I worked a nightshift, 11 PM to 4 AM, prime sleep time. I'd try to catch a nap before going in, but that rarely worked out. Then, I was up at 8:30 or 9 AM to homeschool. That's right, I was an overachiever. And not a very good one. I was exhausted (read: short-tempered and selfish). I never said "no" when Mom would show up an hour into our school day "just to talk"; I hated the things she said about people who didn't do things her way, and I certainly didn't want her saying those things about me. So, my children suffered. After she'd leave I'd browbeat them into getting their work done before I ran them to karate and hockey and dance and whatever else they wanted to do. I let them skip assignments and take extra days off -- just because I didn't want to hear them complain and just because I felt so guilty I couldn't do it all. I vacillated between permissive and irate. I had no clue how to set boundaries for myself or for my children. I wanted to enjoy being a mother, and sometimes I did, but I constantly second guessed myself and always measured myself against the other moms. I always felt as though "the best of my ability" would never be good enough. I was right.

Fast forward to today. I am not the same person I was. Solely, because the Holy Spirit has had His finger on my entire life. There are blessings I have received simply because God loves me and blessings I have received because my behavior is not what it was years ago -- blessings of better consequences, you might say. I have had hardship and pain, and plenty of those head-scratching moments -- all because He is working to transform me, teach me, prepare me, and make me look more like Christ, my Namesake. As a result, the things I do today, I pray, I do not to the best of my ability, but by the strength of the Lord. (Twenty years ago, I would have had no idea what that meant. These days I can almost feel it when I've gone from AutoPilot ☝ to "let me have a crack at it.") 

I often wonder how differently things would have turned out had I welcomed the Holy Spirit into my life when I was my raising children, and it grieves me. I have apologized to my children. I have apologized to my ex-husband. I have apologized to myself. And I have apologized to the Lord. But the regret is there. I wish I could go back and do it all again. I wish I could go back and be the person God is making me, for those who were in my care back then. But I can't. And I don't usually write things like this. I don't usually talk about regrets and simply leave it out there, but someone needs to hear this. Someone needs to know it's not too late. Someone needs to know the transforming power of the Holy Spirit is real. Someone needs to know that when we follow Jesus, the only regret we have is not doing it sooner - before the marriage ended, before the words were said, before the children were grown, before the bridge was burnt, before it ended in a guilty verdict. Today, the Holy Spirit put this burden on my heart, and He knows who you are. I pray you do life by the strength of the Lord.