And each of us is a slow learner when it comes to knowing who our best self is. Daily we struggle with ourselves to face our own mistakes, sins, and inadequacies. We get mad when others point out the failures, sins, and inadequacies that we know we have. We get scared by challenges that require us to step outside our comfort zones. We work over and over to find the best balance between our jobs, their schooling and activities, and our own personal time - as well as finding Prime Time for God.
But I think the biggest challenge we have in our lives is breaking the family cycle of sins, inadequacies, addictions, and failures in mothering and fathering that pass from generation to generation. Because no one gets the job description totally right, not even the best of parents. And if our parents have really wounded us, it is so hard to see our own selves clearly, realistically, honestly, and non-judgmentally enough to grow beyond the kind of role modeling that our parents presented us with.
Yet we all have the Best Parent Who Exists to help us, if we are willing to give ourselves to Him to form us into the best parent whom we can become. God is our Father and Mother, the One Who teaches us that the best parents are reliable, set limits and rules, love each child for him or herself, are not physical, emotional, or sexual abusers, are faithful and positive and nurturing and challenging and encouraging. This Divine Parent speaks to us through the Holy Word of Scripture and also speaks to each of us individually in our own souls.
If our own parents didn't know how to parent well, we need to search out spiritual fathers and mothers, those family members, friends, or clergy who can role model for us, teach us, and through our relationship with them show us how lovable and capable we are and how to be real parents exuding kind authority rather than basically uninterested and inconsistent "friends." Because, we can't give what we don't have. We need to be taught how to parent if we've never seen the practical, daily way it should be done!
Above all, we need to constantly re-affirm to ourselves our belief and trust that God chose us for the role of parenting because God knows that either we can do as good a job as our parents did or we can do better and go farther in growing up and nurturing our young than our parents did. God can fill us with the power of His Life within us to give us the courage we need to face our anger at our own inadequacies or our parents' inadequacies and also to walk the road of learning how to forgive ourselves and/or forgive them.
Sadly, we can often watch our children make the same mistakes we did and know that they learned them from watching us when we were younger, more immature parents, still finding our way. When this happens, we need to be honest and loving, and gently call their attention to the people we are now, the values we hold now, - yet give them room to grow in their own way at their own pace. God has always allowed us the time we need, and helped us make changes in ourselves according to His perfect timing! Above all, we can and must pray for them, placing ourselves willingly in God's Presence, asking God to inspire them and inspire us to know which steps to take on this parenting journey.
God loves us and loves the parenting job we are doing. God sees the immense difference that even the smallest word of endearment or encouragement that we speak to a son or daughter can strengthen his or her weary heart. God knows that every minute or hour we spend with our children, being attentive to them shows them how much we care for them as individuals. And God knows that the more we "grow" our relationship with Him as His faithful sons and daughters, the more deeply and unerringly we will understand how to parent our own beloved children!