Parenting is, without a doubt, THE hardest job in the world, but undeniably, the most rewarding.  Not many would argue with me on that…

But when your children are small and you are tired and frustrated, and think it can’t possibly get any harder–you put them to bed, breathe a sigh of relief, and navigate your way through to the end of another day.

… Only to wake up and realize that the time is gone, and they have become men and women who are living out their own frustrations, making their own decisions, raising their own children–and you wish you could go back.  Not really go back in time and relive it all, but maybe just go back long enough to treasure some of those precious moments just a little longer–and spend time repairing some of the things you wish you had done better.

But we can’t go back.  While we can’t “undo” the past, we can learn from it.  This parenting journey is not an easy one, and the most difficult part of all is keeping ourselves on track.  Being a living, breathing example of what we are hoping to teach them.  Though we would never want to admit it or see it in ourselves–we sometimes model to our children the very things we don’t want to see in them.

“Like mother, like daughter”, or “like father, like son” they say.  The good, the bad and the ugly.

And we pray they learn from it all how to be a better person–and better parents than we were.

How much more it must grieve our Heavenly Father when He sees in us the very opposite of what He came and demonstrated for us:

Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.

Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men.

And when He had come as a man
in His external form,
He humbled Himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
For this reason God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name
that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
of those who are in heaven and on earth
and under the earth— and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

Instead, our society sees humility as weakness.

We carry around a false sense of pride.

Feeling we are “owed” something.

Thinking we are better than another human being, just because

we are wealthy,

“or not like those rich people”.

Attractive,

athletic,

white,

black,

powerful,

influential,

or a person of faith. (ouch!)