Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.   Proverbs 3:5-6

Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.com.

As I drove Zack to Youth Group a few weeks ago, he and I hit a snag while planning his upcoming birthday celebration. Now that he’s entering high school, his and his brother Mason’s relationship has shifted. Where they were once joined at the hip, shared all the same interests, and finished each other’s sentences, they’re paths are now diverging. The love and bond are deep and everlasting, but things on the surface have changed.

The issue was: Zack wanted just his same-aged-friends to go to the local amusement park for his birthday. Yet, he was deeply distraught about excluding his brother. The seven-minute-drive to the Parish Center was not long enough to solve the problem. I dropped him off saying we’d talk more about it when he got home.

Two hours later, when my husband brought him home, Zack came bounding up the basement steps. He flopped onto the couch where I was sitting by myself in the family room, and declared, “I figured it out! At Youth Group, they took us to Adoration. So I prayed to God about the thing with Mason, and God told me what to do!”

As he spelled out the solution, I was so overwhelmed with emotion I was only able to half-listen. First, my heart grew heavy realizing just how burdened he’d been about this issue. Then it swelled with pride that his burden stemmed from his sincere concern for his brother’s feelings. Doesn’t every mother want her kids to care that much about each other? But all that was surpassed by enormous relief that the years of role modeling finally payed off.

I routinely show my kids just how limited I am as a mother, and as a person. I tell them when I’m clueless, and I let it rip when I’m frustrated and angry. All that is always followed by me retreating and going to God with it all. Whether I lock myself in my room, or flee to the back deck, I get the quiet I need to share it all with God. That’s when I hear Him whisper how to fix things.

When I return to my kids a new and refreshed mom, I make sure they know my Source. Although they say kids are intuitive, and they are, they’re also very self-absorbed. It’s so important to me that my kids realize God is my Rock, my Go-To, my Problem Solver and my Redeemer.

Whether they want to hear it or not, I walk them through the process of how God transforms me. Like the miracle of turning water into wine, He takes all my deficiencies, blesses my begging heart, and equips me with the answers, energy, and hope I need to come back to them a better mom.

Each and every time I journey through that process I’m humbled and awed by the experience. But nothing, nothing ever prepared me for how it feels to witness my son go through it too. That is a blessing no words can describe.

Questions for Reflection:

     * Do I turn to God with my deficiencies?

     * Do I allow Him to transform them into enough?

     * Have I allowed my kids to witness this process?

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