So, as you know (or perhaps you don't, and in that case, you might want to brush up on my posts on mommy anger), in my quest to figure out why I was angry, one of the reasons that I found was that I have fear in parenting. While the fact that I am fearful came as no surprise to me (I am a worrier at heart on most issues in life), it made me scratch my head just a little. Obviously I am not fearful of my children, who are a great deal smaller than me and can cause no physical harm to me. So why then, did I find myself reacting in anger over fear? After pondering for a while, I realized that my parenting fear goes deep into a fear of failure.
I think as an oldest, and as a type-A personality, I want everything to be perfect. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot before you ever make it out of the gate. We live in a fallen world. Perfection will never be obtained this side of Heaven. Yet even still, I strive for it. I'm sure God chuckles at me as he watches me push myself in vain. My drivenness for perfection is not absent from my parenting. It's not necessarily that I want my children to be perfect either, for in my heart I know that that is unobtainable. No, my fear of imperfection is that my imperfection as a parent, my lack of some skill that I am sure a self-help book or a how-to parenting for dummies encyclopedia will share with me the secret to, will somehow cause my child irreparable damage. I have this nightmare, this vision of sorts, of my child sitting in a chair sobbing to a therapist about something I did during their childhood that caused them to be a failure. And it makes my heart so fearful and sad. I hate to think that something that I do could cause them to miss out on life.
As if that fear is not enough, I found that my fear was double sided. My fear was not only rooted in the fear that I may fail, but also that my children may do something that I don't control and cause them to have more hurt than is already offered by our world. I know. When you step back and think about it, it's laughable. I have no control over it, so why worry about it right? Well, that's me. Welcome to my worrysome life :)
The awesome thing is that in digging around in the muck of my anger, fear, perfectionism and such, God has revealed to me that while it's ok to worry, I don't need to dwell on it. I need to cast all my cares upon Him (1Peter 5:7). He's in control of the situation. And He is here to make up for my inadequacies as a parent, and my child's inadequacies as a person. People mess up, and Lord knows I've made my fair share of messes in my own life, and it's almost certain (although I wish it not) that my children will someday make messes themselves that they will unfortunately have to learn from. The great thing is that with God, His love is perfect, and "perfect love casts out all fear" (1John 4:18). I don't have to be perfect, He is perfect. I don't have to fear, because He is in the business of making all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). My failures can, and WILL, be made beautiful. What an amazing concept! As I let these truths pour over my heart, it's with open hands that I give God these fears as a mommy. I'm so grateful that God allows me to bring my fears to Him and that "His burden is easy and His yolk is light" (Matthew 11:30). Such peace to have a Savior that will meet me right where I am.
note:
{I actually wrote this post on Tuesday and had it saved to post for today. It was on my heart, and so I wrote.I felt the words fluidly move from my head/heart to the keyboard. It was as if God was just giving me the truth I needed to "hear" and I felt like sharing that. The interesting thing is that yesterday was a HARD day in my parenting "career". I was pushed to the limit by a defiant toddler, my baby was (and still is) FUSSY, FUSSY, FUSSY and I honestly didn't know if I'd make it until Drew got home from work. I have no doubt it was spiritual warfare... Satan doesn't like me to post words like what are on this post, and he wants me to feel like a failure so that I don't even feel confident enough to post what I feel is the truth. So... I say all that so that you know that even though this is my heart, I still need more prayer than any of us. Thank you for walking this journey with me. Hopefully I don't scare you all off with my honesty-- ha!}
israel; the start. Pre-pandemic
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