Sponges

As a mom of young children, I am so aware of what little sponges they are. Sometimes it's paralyzing, really, realizing how much they are taking in from me. What are the idiosyncrasies, sin patterns, and plain old strange habits I am passing on, I wonder?

I regularly pray that the Lord will shield them from me and open their hearts to Him.

I also am terribly aware of all the junk out there. That, too, can be paralyzing, can't it?

The truth is that even when they are with the people of God, they are exposed to things that are yet in need of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. No person is sinless. No person is perfect. Even the best-intentioned, earnestly-God-following friend will at times be a negative influence in their little lives.

Wow.

Here's what I've had to come to terms with over and over again, since the first minute I held my firstborn in my trembling hands and cried tears of shame at all the sin he would see in me over the coming years: it is my job to be faithful; it is not my job to do a perfect job or do the job only the Holy Spirit can do.

There is absolutely a time to shelter and hide them away. I am a firm believer in the anointing on a mom and dad to know when a situation will be too much for their child to navigate. I am an even more firm believer that childhood should not be a time when we unleash the world on these young ones, but rather a time when we create a greenhouse environment in which they can grow their roots down deep.

But they will come face to face with sin. In the world. In me. In themselves.

And so I pray daily for wisdom. I pray daily that as I take in the Word of God, it would be the standard raised high and an anchor that holds not just for my own soul, but for my little charges' souls as well. I pray that confrontations with sin would not make them bitter, but would open their hearts to Truth.

I pray that He would protect them.

And I take great, soul-satisfying comfort in how able He is to know when they need to see the raw ugliness of sin that they might see the Savior, and when they need to be shielded.

I am their mother. Daniel is their father.

He is God.