Be a good parent, hope for the best, pray for the rest…

Sounds easy enough right?

Sigh!

I’m having a “woe is me” day – where I feel like a failed parent. I have those days. Bear with me.

I thought about structure of this post, and what exactly it is that I want to say and… da na na na then… Thought maybe I will just do a “word vomit” *insert vomit noise* where I just vomit everything (because my heart wants to vomit today), I want to say onto the page and then see from there.

I have an awesome kid. Last night I realized (again) that she is insecure about one of her features, something that she, has somewhere between the start of her school career, and now become aware of and that this feature isn’t like everyone else’s. My first instinct is to march down to the school and just bring down the house – Who told her, that she wasn’t like everyone else, and that this was a bad thing? But before I can even finish the thought, my heart breaks. I can see the hurt, in this stage in her life where friends and peers mean so very much – how can I make this better?

Along with this comes a string of old and new fears that I cannot protect her from everything, or be there all the time. Hence my title.

It’s in times like these I find myself freaking out – getting weepy, and then taking a few deep breaths, becoming still and just saying a prayer, because I don’t have all the answers in fact I don’t even have most of them…. the answers I have are very few if any..they go along the lines of “Yes, you can go for a play-date”, “Your socks are in the second drawer” and “I packed your sports clothes in the bag by the door”.

A good friend posted a blog yesterday called “Being the parent of a purpose filled child” – it’s such a relevant post and although I read it and thought wow, that’s so true – yesterday, I didn’t know this would be a reality for me today.

My prayer because I have less words today than usual, is as Luchae has so beautifully said: “I pray for the wisdom to always know when to push and when to protect! I pray that we will know which doors to help open and which doors to keep shut! And I pray that we will always be the best example that we can be for them!”

And with that – I will let go of what I cannot control and do what I can, love her unconditionally to the best of my ability.

*relief*

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