My faith is their anchor

Too often I am not as present as I feel I should be with my kids. I nurture and love and practice patience all day with preschoolers. Other people's children don't push my buttons like my own and at the end of the day, not only am I spent, but there is all the domestic demands that threaten to dredge up stress if they pile up too long. I won't go too much into the kind of guilt this can surface, because that is a whole 'nother post. 

At bedtime, however, they do get me in all of my presence. I read a story and then it's lights off. I lay with young one (my boys share a room, but not a bed) and we say our prayers. Sometimes they say a little something, but usually it's me saying the prayer. It always starts out with thankfulness. I point out that even though the world can be a harsh place, we are still surrounded by beauty. No matter how hard life can feel, the sky is still a brilliant shade of blue. The birds are still returning from the south, and the tulips and crocuses are pushing there way toward the sun from the cold earth. I draw attention to how blessed we are to have our health and safety. I then ask for the continuance of our health and safety as well as the wisdom and discipline to make good choices that also ensure those things. We pray for the people who are suffering and I ask that we are led to use our gifts to help alleviate some of that suffering. I ask for the strength to remain patient and trusting as well as forgiveness for falling and taking down others with me, especially my children. I ask for peace in our hearts and faith that we are where we are meant to be, even when it feels hard. I then sing a song. As I start to sing, I can just feel my sweet, sweet boys settle in. Their feeling of safety is almost palpable. It's like a big exhale in the room. 

When I come from a place of trust, they trust. My faith is their anchor. I so want to be that anchor all the time, and there are inevitably those times where I feel more like a sail, letting the winds of fear uproot me. And there they are, stuck on this ship with me with no one at the helm. When I remind them, when I remind myself, that God is at the helm, everyone lets go a little and steps into a place of faith. 

Through this time of change and uncertainty in our lives, we must cling to faith. I want my children to know the importance of heartache. It breaks my heart, as their mother, to see them hurting. Yet I know that gifts will accompany this pain and I will do my best to help them see that. Their father and I are separated, heading for divorce and I am seeing the pain and fear of that manifest in their little selves. Tonight we prayed for their dad, that he will find peace and whatever it is that he is seeking. I asked that our children always know that they are so, so loved and always taken into consideration. I will keep telling them. I will keep praying with them. We will keep looking at the gifts this hardship is bringing, and I am really seeing them. There is something so comforting about walking in faith that all things are bringing us closer to our true selves, especially these hard times of extreme growth. My heart is opening wide and I think I am becoming a better mother, a better person, through this. I trust this process and that doesn't mean it's easy, it just means that I am choosing to believe that this is somehow for the best. 

My children will be ok. They are blessed beyond measure to have two parents who love them and will continue to take care of them. We will make sure of that. While I go through this grieving process over the death of my marriage, the death of the family unit, I will come back again and again to faith, and hopefully, so will my boys. I see when I am anchored in faith, so are they.