Thankful

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As we celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I spent some time reflecting on the past year. I'm grateful to God for the blessings that we have received as a family, how He has led and guided us even when we didn't know what we were doing.

I spent a good part of Daniel's first year trying to be a perfect mother. I read every child rearing book that I could find. I was on Mommy message boards, listening and chatting with people. The more I tried, the more I realized that certain things were not going as planned. Advice didn't work, and my common sense certainly didn't.

I'm thankful that God taught me that I couldn't be a perfect mother. I thank God that He taught me that I could bend myself over backwards, and still find no answers to my little problems. I thank God that He made me realize that when I rely more on my human capacity, I rely less on God's wisdom.

Left with no solutions at hand, sometimes, I would just mumble, Help me Jesus, I really don't know what to do. Slowly but surely, the burden was lifted off my shoulders.

I realized why people talk about freedom in Christ. It meant having the capacity to live my life, "guilt and burden free" and know that I'm not in control of any situation. It meant having to rely on God for every small, little detail and trust and know that He would lead us through it.

It meant being grateful for how much God has given me, and to enjoy every moment of it. It meant that I could be the world's dumbest parent, but still have nothing to worry about, because God has my child in the palm of his hands. And my child will be just fine. So will we.

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