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Oct 22, 2024 18:00pm

Letters to My Children: When I Fail You

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To My Children,

Now that you are older and gaining some perspective on your past, I know you feel there are ways I’ve come up short as your parent. I know you feel I do things differently for your younger siblings than I did for you. I know you feel there are ways I failed you or did wrong as I was raising you.

First, I want to say I’m sorry for all the ways that I did sin against you—for the times I knew I was in the wrong, and for the times I didn’t realize what I was doing. There is never any excuse that can blame away sin.

There were other things I did that I wouldn’t necessarily call sinful, but that I regret—ways I parented because I believed that’s what a Christian parent should do but maybe were more damaging than helpful. I diligently searched the Scriptures on my own and with your dad for parenting wisdom and commands. As an imperfect person with limited understanding, I didn’t always apply them correctly.

I read numerous Christian books about parenting and tried to apply their principles, which I believed were rooted in Scripture. Sometimes I mimicked other Christian parents because their methods sounded good, and because, honestly, I had no other idea what to do. In hindsight, I don’t agree with some of those methods now.

Some of the problems I faced with you as a toddler and young child seemed insurmountable and unending at the time. As a new parent, I often felt overwhelmed and hopeless to face the challenges that arose. Now I know they were just normal things that all parents of young children experience, and a little more patience and consistency on my part would have gone a long way.

I often felt like I had no clue what I was doing as a parent—they don’t hand out parenting manuals along with the baby when you leave the hospital. I thought if I could find that one golden ticket, that one fool-proof parenting practice, then I would get perfect results. I know now that it doesn’t exist.

There are things I do differently with your younger siblings because I have learned from my mistakes, but I have also, by God’s grace, grown in godliness and the fruit of theSpirit—things like kindness, gentleness, and self-control. I, too, have gained perspective on things. I have learned to recognize more differences between childishness and disobedience. I have grown in giving grace to others and resting in grace for my own failures instead of thinking every misbehavior of my children was a poor reflection on my parenting.

I know this may make you feel a little bit like a guinea pig in my parenting journey. I wish I could’ve had it all figured out from the time you were born, but that’s not the way life works; we all learn and grow from our past mistakes and successes.

In all of this, I hope you will see that not everything I did was bad. Know that I have always sought to do my best, to be a godly parent who raised you according to the fear and admonition of the Lord. I have always loved you, always prayed for you, and always tried to do what was for your good, including teaching you how to live the way God says is best. Most importantly, I have always told you the truth of God’s Word, and I have always told you about Jesus—that he loves you in such an amazing way that he died on the cross for your sins and that you need to turn to him as your Savior.

My parenting certainly isn’t perfect, but I hope you remember the most important things I tried to teach you. I trust in God’s sovereignty, that even in my shortcomings as your parent, he will work all things out for your good.

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.