My Insufficiency

I lie in bed tonight feeling utterly and completely drained; a failure; completely insufficient for the task. What task? you may ask. The hard, painstakingly difficult task of parenting.

There’s no need to go into detail, but our youngest child would simply not go to bed when she was supposed to. She may have gotten up from her bed 10 times tonight—perhaps even more.

My wife and I have been through this before, and I’m sure we’ll go through it again. Yes, our youngest girl is incredibly strong-willed and defiant at times, most certainly at bedtime. That creates a vicious cycle and, too many times, I get angry. So does my wife. So does my child.

This night—well—this night was horrible. I’ll just say it for what it was: absolutely horrible. Mentally draining. We do everything under the sun. We spank, we use positive and/or negative reinforcement; though we also do our fair share of empty threats. (Yes, we know that’s a no-no when disciplining…hence our insufficiency.)

Some nights are easier than others. This wasn’t one of those nights. It appears our little girl was going to do everything in her power to get what she wanted. And as I lie down in bed thinking about all the ways I failed tonight, I can only thing of one thing: my utter helplessness, my complete insufficiency.

The ultimate problem is not whether our youngest chooses to defy us and get out of bed again. It’s unfortunately going to happen again; we must be calm, cool, collected, and consistent. And we must—we must—rely on the Holy Spirit rather than our tempers and pride. The big problem is when we allow our temper, our pride, our sinful anger to dictate how we respond to our little girl.

Is our youngest a sinner? Absolutely. Does she know that she’s defying our parenting and not listening to us? Absolutely. Are we going to “win” this battle with anger, pride, arguing? Absolutely not.

Here’s my plea, my supplication, my prayer: Help me, Lord, to focus on my attitude and response versus my child’s insistence on getting her way. I cannot allow my child’s defiance to cause my anger and frustration. I must give it all to you, Lord.

I am totally insufficient for the task of parenting; I know my wife would say the same thing—definitely after the night we just had. I’m quick to rely on my feelings and emotions rather than on Christ’s strength. It’s easy to say that, but what does it look like in this situation? It looks like gentleness, patience, perseverance, consistency, and love. At times, it looks like showing grace. Other moments, it looks like firmly yet lovingly spanking my child, regardless of it works (many times it doesn’t). Perhaps it looks like taking things away from her.

Friend, this quick blog has a three-fold purpose: (1) pray for my wife and me; (2) encourage you or someone you know that they’re not alone in dealing with this—keep trusting in Christ; and (3) just to get my thoughts out.

When this happens, the easiest thing to do is get angry, frustrated, exasperated. But that’s not what Christ wants. That’s not the Holy Spirit; that’s just me and my sin.

Help me, Lord, and be my sufficiency in the task of parenting.