The Responsibility of Parenting

Does it ever hit you? The responsibility of parenting?

It’s been almost two weeks since the Las Vegas shooting occurred, but it’s something that doesn’t leave you. Unfortunately things like this are becoming too common, and after hearing about them, it never takes long for me to start worrying about the future, which for me includes my kids.

How do I raise them in a world like this? How do I explain evil to them? Why do I have to? How do I keep them innocent in this culture?

Dan and I talk a lot about how innocent our kids are. About how the hardest question Oliver has for us right now is what each dinosaur is. But we can look that up. That question has a tangible answer that we can find for him.

It’s a huge responsibility to have to explain evil to kids. To teach them that humanity is still kind and good when we see chaos and destruction everywhere. To have them understand that sin is rampant in their world and their hope needs to be in Jesus, not in the world getting better. How and when do you start explaining these things?

I want Oliver and Zoey to be kind. I want them to love others well, to celebrate diversity, to be a light in the darkness. For them to see wrong and call it wrong and to lift up what is right.

What a responsibility to raise up the future. God has entrusted me and Dan with the lives of these two tiny humans, and that’s not something we take lightly. When being a stay at home mom begins to feel mundane, I think about how I’m responsible for bringing up two lives to be part of the solution for our broken society. Or at least, to tell others about Jesus, who is the solution.

I’m so torn between wanting to shield my kids forever. When I’m reading about the horrific deaths of 58 human beings and hundreds more being injured and my son is just giggling with his dinosaurs- I don’t want him to lose that. But at the same time- he’s the future. I have no doubt that Jesus has great plans for my kids and plans to use them in mighty ways. And it’s my responsibility to bring them up with this truth.

What a weighty privilege.

Nothing has knocked me on my knees in prayer more than having kids. Parenting has already been a battle knowing I want to protect them but then surrendering them to the Lord because I know I can’t. My kids are only 2 and 6 months, y’all, and I already have so much worry and fear and anxiety.

So my hope is in Jesus working in their lives and using them, and knowing that the most I can do is point them to the Lord and endlessly pray for them. What a responsibility.