Coming Up Short

It is simple to see all the flaws in our children and ourselves. And it would be easy for us to take the blame for our children’s failures, since we are their mother and responsible for training them! However, rather than focusing on the bad, it’s more beneficial to focus on faith and the potential someday to be realized after years of praying and seeing God work. It’s better to have faith that God can take my honest offering of steadfastness and hope.

He will make up for our deficits. Though we don’t understand why bad things happen, He is stronger and bigger than all the “bad,” and in His time, He will redeem it all. Faith must be in His power and not our own. Rather than focusing on our own lack of strength, we trust His ability to reach our children. Giving Him our best, we leave the results in His hands, waiting for His timing. This relinquishing happens one minute at a time—one detail at a time.

When the enemy convinces us that our concentration should be placed on what is lacking in our lives, our personality flaws, our family’s difficult places, we become unable to affect the world in a positive way. And that is a terrible loss indeed.

His Promises

I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake

and will never think of them again.

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.

He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.