Soak It All Up

Good afternoon! I have a question for you, so please be honest with yourself. Did you ever think the way our parents raised us would have an affect on how we raise our children? I had never even thought about that until I started facing hardships as a single parent. I wish raising a child came with a handbook, but alas, it does not! I always saw my mother and father work hard, provide for us, and they absolutely NEVER argued in front of us. There was so much love between them it would make my sister and I giggle when they kissed. “That’s my sweetie”, my dad would say when people would bring up my mom in conversation. I remember seeing how well my father took care of my mom when she got sick and I wanted that same love for myself someday.

When I turned 23 and the reality that I was a single mom who had just left a 3 year relationship hit me, well, you can imagine my disappointment. I never felt that low before. Low like the forgotten legs of a roach you squashed with the bottom of your shoe. But I always remembered my mother said, “ When life gets you down, you gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and keep on keeping on!” I had heard that since I was a young girl. I even got the chance to see my mother do that exact thing, when her mother passed away. I was 15, and I still don’t know how my mother got through that with 2 hard headed teenage kids to deal with! She has always been graceful about handling situations and hard times. So I guess I soaked that up and learned from her example. I am so grateful for that.

Now I have a 10 year old and I have made mistakes and learned from them, and then made different mistakes and have learned from those as well. I had a few bad months where I was discouraged and did not believe in myself anymore. I had even stopped reading the Word because I felt like an embarrassment to the Lord. My child saw all of that, but you know what? Just like my downfall, my comeback didn’t go unnoticed either. My child saw me pull myself up by my bootstraps so to say, and my perspective changed. I no longer feel like an embarrassment, but I am grateful that the Lord used me as an example for my child. No matter what, our children are soaking up everything we do, just like a sponge, so we need to find the good in all things, especially when things get hard. This way, they will have the tools to deal with hardships and they will be EMOTIONALLY MATURE. Giving up immediately or lashing out because things didn’t go as planned should be the farthest thing from our minds, and theirs as well.

Lets work on this together and strive to do better than we did yesterday!

With all my love, Chel.