Dear mama who’s in the trenches with your little girl:
You might not want to hear this and you might not believe it but I’m going to say it anyway.
All the hard work you’re doing now is incredibly worth it! The endless training, the consistent discipline, the day after day repetitive conversations, the countless lessons, the laundry, the emotional meltdowns–I promise you there comes a time when you get something back, something that will make you smile and remember and know it was all worth it. In other words, there’s a payoff!
If your girls are little, I know exactly how it feels. The future years stretch ahead and you wonder if they’ll ever get what you’re trying to teach, if it will ever connect in their brains and hearts as frustration mounts. May I encourage you to keep going? To continue faithfully praying, nurturing, teaching, admonishing, and standing your ground. To keep loving, nurturing, disciplining, modeling and teaching.
I know there are days you’d just rather quit. I’m aware how overwhelming it all feels sometimes. I get how stubbornness in a strong-willed child can make you want to throw in the towel! I feel you as you face hours of helping with homework…dealing with dating…teaching everything from multiplication to making wise choices.
It’s hard.
It’s relentless.
It’s all-consuming.
But here’s a little secret. There’s a payoff! Let me share a true story with you.
Just yesterday, as I write this, I spent a wonderful few hours with my grown-up daughter before heading back to my home in Atlanta. I’d been in Nashville for a couple days to help her out with her babies, my precious grand-angels aged 2 and 4. We dropped the children at a local church’s Mom’s Day Out program and headed to breakfast together before I drove home and she went off to rehearsal for her fall tour.
I can’t begin to describe to you how gratifying it is to hear your own child talk about life and marriage, work and child rearing. Over strong coffee and perfectly cooked eggs we shared amazing conversation about God and church and the deep things she and her husband are learning. My heart, immensely blessed, was awestruck at God’s faithfulness. He showed me a big truth:
When we are faithful in the day to day of mothering, the year after year relentless training and raising children to follow the Lord, He is faithful to continue leading them long after our job is done.
She’s right there with you in the trenches. God has called her and her family to full-time traveling music ministry where touring for the next forty weeks is staring her full in the face. It’s not an easy life, not one bit. But it’s what God has called her to and she’s doing her best to be faithful to His call. When she gets on the bus to go to some strange city hours away, her husband goes too and so do her children. And she’s right in the thick of parenting little ones–the endless training, the consistent discipline, the day after day repetitive conversations, the countless lessons, the laundry, the emotional meltdowns– just like you.
But to hear her speak about God and to see the consistency in her life as she disciplines her children with love, to hear back from her lips words and concepts I taught her decades ago, to listen as she shares how the Lord is working in her heart–it astounded me as I sat there just soaking up God’s goodness. It’s something you can look forward to mama!
What’s most captivating to me is knowing God is real to her. To know she has her own deep and meaningful relationship with the God of the universe!
6 Comments
I love this! It’s so true! The payoff can be unexpected encouragement. Just the other day my grown daughter thanked me saying: ” thank you mom for making it easy for me to look to Jesus in all things. ”
I couldn’t ask for anything more!
It really is the best thing Carol! It makes all the years and the lessons so, so worth it! Blessings!
You have done an amazing job with your daughter! Francesca just performed at our church’s womens conference in AZ a couple of weeks ago and God’s light truly shines through her. He has blessed her with some amazing talent and she does an awesome job inspiring all of us fans! We have to continually seek His strength and wisdom as we parent our children through some of the most difficult days and remember to give a lot of praise & thanks for the easier ones
Thank you so much Tiffany! You’re so right, we must always keep seeking Him and His wisdom, it’s the only way to navigate life let alone all the seasons we go through! Blessings!
Loved reading this…as I endured 2 horrible tantrums last week…#1 about taking off her shoes and putting them away and #2 going potty all by herself like a big girl. I know we will laugh together one day about these moments but talk about a strong willed and stubborn little girl! In my mind the whole time I could hear my own mom…be gentle but firm…hold your ground…and when it is all over wrap her in your love. We pray every night in her little prayer book and last night on the way home from dance class I hear from the back seat, “Dear God….” and she went on and on from there…maybe it is all that Atlanta traffic she is praying us through but so sweet to hear that I have opened the door just a bit for her to start her journey in faith.
Oh, Melissa, that is so good!!! Your mom is right, keep doing what you’re doing. Your mom sounds a lot like me and I give the same advice to my daughter. You ARE opening the way for your precious girl and if she learns how to listen to and obey YOU, she will learn how to listen and obey God when she’s older. The tantrums are so hard but I really think they’re a combination of not being able to fully express their frustrations combined with the sin nature beginning to rear it’s ugly head. Hang in there mama, I promise you, the payoff is so worth it!