I find myself returning to old patterns lately. These life scripts try to narrate what matters most. For me, it's the Three A's: Appearance, Affluence, and Achievement. I find that I'm healed over these false sources of security and identity for myself, but they rear their ugly and devious ways in how I parent my daughters.
Lord, help me!
As I micro-manage their appearance and their school achievement, I start drowning in anxiety and fear. I even called my therapist because he warned me that parents reproduce dysfunctional ways of being in their children even when they feel mature and free themselves.
I repeat: Lord, help me!
As I cry out to God this morning, I recall one verse from Galatians 5 where Paul writes that, "the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love."
As I think about what matters most of all in the lives of my children, it's not their appearance, future job security, or their achievements; it's that they might live lives of radical faith and radical love.
That's what we're building here. When I'm tempted to micro-manage out of fear, I bore down deep into my own heart to realize the lie I'm believing.
Faith and love: this matters most.
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