Swimming Upstream

For those of you who do not know me...I love learning and reading.  I really love reading and learning about how to become a better person.  I know...I am a strange one.  That is one reason I love doing a Bible study because every week I learn something new about myself.  Sometimes it is about things I know or have already worked on, but most of the time I come away with an "ouch, am I really doing that?".  I felt like a had a little break in the self realization department this week because the topic was a lot about the stress of raising our children, which at the moment is not a major stress for me.  But I guess if you ask my children there are probably a whole list of things I am doing wrong!  For some reason I keep getting the response "mommy, that just doesn't make any sense".  Silly me...I am about to receive my Master's degree in Psychology and I don't know what I am talking about. 

Of course raising children is stressful, but raising godly children in an ungodly world.  Whew!  If you ever get bored, there is a challenge for you.  Good thing I like to be challenged.  Since I was faced with the unexpected pleasure of raising them as a single mom, I had a double challenge.  Right now things are mellow unless you consider the countless number of hours traveling to the karate school and tournaments, the constant worry about my teenager driving to her designation safely, watching them be hurt by others, and the cost of raising a teenager these days.  Compared to how some teenagers stress out their parents I will take what I have.  

Overall, I have really been blessed.  Since I have been working with children for 16 years I know that I am really BLESSED!  My biggest fear was raising teenagers.  Yikes!  I can handle babies, preschoolers, and elementary age.  I am great with behaviors, but you give me a teenager and I would rather have my teeth pulled.  I really believe that God has a sense of humor because my now almost 18 year old lived out her teenage years between the ages of 6-14.  She tells me that she doesn't remember any of it.  I wish I had whatever she was drinking!!

As a single parent there is an element of parenting that no one will ever experience.  There is no partner to help back you up.  There is no tag teaming when one parent has had enough.  All of the physical, spiritual, emotional, and household stress is on the main parent, which typically is the mom.  I didn't choose to be mom and dad, but the promise to me to never let our children be the product of divorce was broken.  The promise to raise our kids in a christian home with morals and values was gone.  Nothing I could do.  Yes, we heard the phrase "I am leaving your mother, not you", but we have learned that those were just words.  I remember praying one morning, "Lord, please don't let my children become one of the statistics".  You know...the ones with the behavior problems, the bitterness, the anger, the poor relationships, and the poor grades all because their dad left.  

From that point on I was no longer raising my children alone, but I was and still am raising them with the Lord's guidance.  No it was not always easy.  When my daughter was 10-14 I got the brunt of her anger.  I know it came from the hurt from her dad leaving and it is normal for children to take out their anger on the parent they live with and not the one they see twice a month, but there were days that I didn't think I was going to make.  I had to keep doing what I was doing and pray that one day she would get through it.  It was up to me to teach morals, values, and character traits.  It was up to me to get them into church every week to hear God's Word and teach them to forgive, yes to even forgive their dad.  It was up to me to discipline and be the bad guy.  As much as it would have been nice to have carefree weekends to play and travel, someone had to do the parenting.  One time they told me "daddy is like our friend, not a parent".  Hmmm...we are not here to be best friends with our children.  Maybe when they are older.  While we raise our children we have to be firm in our teachings at whatever cost.  No, they may not like us some days, but we are called to be their parents and love them unconditionally. 

Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it".  I had to hold on and still hold on tightly to this promise that one day they will be on their own doing the right thing.  I can now look at them and find good in the things that have sometimes caused strife.  While my daughter is headstrong and set in her ways, I am now thankful for her ability to make decisions for herself.  As she is about to set out on her own soon I feel confident that she is not going to let people run all over her and take advantage of her.  Then I think, I taught her that...I guess those arguments were worth it after all!

Blessings!