How God’s Word Offers Hope in Every Season of Parenting

Posted on Mar 05, 2024 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Melissa Kruger

I’ll never forget the first time I put my daughter Emma in her car seat. My husband and I were living in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Emma was born a week early. As we prepared to leave the hospital, we bundled her up and strapped her in the seat to the best of our abilities. She looked so incredibly tiny in her big baby carrier.

We then called for a taxi. Living overseas on a student budget meant that we didn’t have a car, so I’d never had an opportunity to practice adjusting a car seat. As we carried all our things to the waiting driver, we did our best to safely secure her, feeling completely unprepared and unqualified for the task before us.

Buckling her in was just the beginning of my feelings of inadequacy. I didn’t know how to bathe her, feed her, care for her, or parent her. I’d been handed this amazing gift and I found myself wondering, Don’t they come with instruction manuals or something?

I’d read the books; I’d tried to prepare. But head knowledge can take you only so far. There are some parts of parenting that are learned only as you put theory into practice.

I felt inadequate on my first day of parenting. I continue to feel that way 23 years later. While I’ve now been a mother for many years, I’m still the first-time mother of an adult daughter. I’m still learning. I’m still growing. I’m still making mistakes. I’m still finding my way.

While I haven’t found that longed-for parenting manual that gives me explicit instructions for each season of parenting, I can tell you, without a doubt, that I’ve found something even better. God’s Word has been my firm anchor, my shining light, my faithful guide, my trusted resource, and my sure hope in every season of parenting.

It hasn’t told me the particulars of how to get my child to sleep through the night or eat her vegetables. However, it has imbued me with patience and kindness while enduring another sleepless night or finding a veggie mysteriously hidden under a napkin (again). God’s Word hasn’t kept me (or my children) from the realities of suffering, but it has been a comfort while walking through painful losses and unmet expectations. God’s Word doesn’t promise me that my children will live long lives, get married, have grandchildren, or become Christians, but it does promise me that God will be with me always, never leaving nor forsaking me.

As we enter the preteen and teenage years with our children, we know God’s Word is important. We want them to read it. We encourage them to study it. We hope that they’ll love it. And we pray with all sorts of fervor that they’ll obey it.

But before we get to our children’s relationship with God’s Word, I want us to think as parents about our relationship with God and his Word. What we believe and how we live matters greatly for whether our children know, love, and obey God’s Word. We can’t make our children believe in Jesus (see Ephesians 2:8-10), but we can put them in an environment that allows them to witness the fruit of God’s work in our lives. We can hope they hear God’s Word in our home and see its effects on our lives.

You may be tempted to skip over this part of parenting and move on to the “important” stuff—like telling you whether or not it’s okay for your teens to watch certain YouTube videos or wear certain kinds of clothing.

There’s a reason we’re starting here. Parenting isn’t just about figuring out how to manage your teen. In every season of parenting, God is teaching us about himself. He’s parenting us as we parent our children. He’s teaching us as we teach them. He walks with us and wants us to rely on him for the wisdom we so desperately long for as parents.

I can’t promise you a ready resource guide to all of life’s answers for parenting teens. But I can lead you to the One who has the answers, the wisdom, and the guidance you need for your particular child. Thankfully, he promises to be with you and guide you. And, we find him in his Word.