When my husband and I had our first baby we were over the moon. We thought that we would have this little person who would become a mini-me version of us. We would teach him everything. Little did we know that children are born with very specific personalities. We think that we are going to change them but they change us. All four of our children are as different as they can be.
The story of Mary and Joseph (Luke 1:26-56) and (Matthew 1:18-24) is one that we are all familiar with. An angel appeared to Mary and told her that God was going to give her a child and his name would be Jesus. Mary was afraid because she was engaged to Joseph and this was going to be hard to explain. Mary couldn’t understand why God would choose her to give birth to the Savior. She was just an ordinary girl. Joseph was a simple carpenter. He didn’t think he was anything special yet God had chosen him to be the adopted father to Jesus. They possessed no special skills other than they were obedient to God and they had faith. That’s all that was needed to have favor in God’s eyes . He knew that they would be the perfect parents to nurture this child while he was small, keep him safe, recognize his gifts and nurture them. In Luke 2:41-52, when Jesus was a 12 year old boy, He was found by his parents at the temple at the feet of teachers asking questions and trying to learn all that He could. He had been missing for three days. His parents had been worried thinking he was lost. Over time, they recognized that this was part of The Plan that God had in store for Him.
As parents, we have hopes and dreams for our children and we can be disappointed when things don’t go as we envisioned. That is when we have to recognize that we must submit these children to God for His instructions for His Plan. We must exhale our own breath and inhale the breath of the Holy Spirit. We must give our children back to God. We then ask, “God, what do you want me to do? I am your servant; you are my master. Please speak to my soul. Please place people on my path to act as your angels to guide me toward Your Plan that you have written for this child.”
The story is no longer about us and what we had envisioned. The story becomes more about the direction that God has planned. We move forward in faith. The child is no longer viewed as an extension of us and is viewed as an extension of God. The lesson that Mary teaches us is that raising children is a task that has been given to us by God. God gives the child to a specific set of parents who have the gifts, traits, and resources to move that child in the direction that God has planned. Sometimes the plans we make are interrupted by adversity. It is so hard as parents for us to understand, but that too is part of The Plan. Our hopes and dreams have to change. We have to reassess whether those plans were ours or God’s .
We don’t mold our children. They mold us. Children are born with their unique personality, we are the ones who adjust. Of course, we can teach a child morals and how to live within the rules of society but they learn how to fit these to their own personality. It seems that the most frustrating moments for me as a parent have been when I have tried to bend a child in the direction in which they are not meant to bend.
I have learned that these children were never really mine. We have to give our kids back to God. It is an illusion to believe that they are ours. They are only a gift on loan from Him.
Peace and Love.
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She writes about life, death, grief, and recovery.
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