God's Steadfast Goodness In Parenting

It’s the thing that should have freaked me out most of all. Along with the anxiety I’ve had regarding finances, jobs, marriage, divorce, marriage again and all the rest of life thrown in I find the thing that should have caused me the most fear hasn’t. I stand on the brink of seventeen years raising my daughter and God’s been faithful each step of the way.

The stereotypical picture is that of them handing the baby to you on the hospital steps without an owners’ manual. Some at that point can point to experience---perhaps their parents did a standard job of raising them so that they have a framework. I had no framework. I had snapshots I’d gleaned; other families that did it right, sermons I’d heard and books I read after the initial hand-off. That little fragile package should have sent me into paroxysms of fear.

The daughter just announced to me that she in her first male-female relationship. Today I quake just a little. Not for fear springing from who my daughter is. No, I hesitate because of who I was. All teenage boy with no boundaries.

There are, I confess, some significant past life events where I still question outcomes and providence. Yet in the raising of my daughter God has had extensive mercy toward my feeble frame and lack of framework. It’s as if God has said, “Having proven myself in this small thing shall I not show Myself faithful in the larger things?” Life is full of things that cause me to quake but today the faithful hand of Providence bids me be still and be at peace.