I recently finished reading "Parenting Isn't for Cowards" by Dr. James Dobson. One passage has really stuck with me. I'd like to share it because it is both practical and encouraging.
"There's hardly a parent alive who does not have some regrets and painful memories of failures as a mother or a father. Children are infinitely complex...and we cannot be perfect parents any more than we can be perfect human beings. The pressures of living are stressful and we get tired and irritated; we are influenced by our physical bodies and our emotions, which sometimes prevent us from saying the right things and being the model we should be. We don't always handle our children as unemotionally as we wish we had, and it's very common to look back a year or two later and see how wrong we were in the way we approached a problem.
"All of us experience these failures! That's why each of us should get alone with the Creator of parents and children and say: Lord, You know my inadequacies. You know my weaknesses, not only in parenting, but in every area of my life. I did the best I could, but it wasn't good enough. As You broke the fishes and the loaves to feed the five thousand, now take my meager effort and use it to bless my family. Make up for the things I did wrong. Satisfy the needs that I have not satisfied. Wrap Your great arms around my children, and draw them close to You. And be there when they stand at the great crossroads between right and wrong. All I can give is my best, and I've done that. Therefore, I submit to You my children and the job I'm doing as a parent. The outcome now belongs to You."
Whew! What a comfort it is to know that we aren't alone in this great journey of raising children!
