Spiritual Battles

As I said in a previous post, I was fighting a battle for my son. But let me say that on another front, I was fighting another battle within. Yes, our son was raised in a Christian home, but we must have gone wrong... Where did we go wrong? For weeks I felt lonely, abandoned and deserted as I pondered these thoughts within myself. Slowly but surely, God began showing me that I had been lied to by the deceiver himself years prior to the events that were currently plaguing my life!

When my boys were at the innocent ages of two and four we had trials... temper tantrums, hitting, biting, tattling, even sassy little mouths and just plain disobedience, which was always corrected with time outs or yes, spankings!! When they were young I read numerous books on raising children and obedience and felt that if I followed these rule books of instruction that everything would turn out right! Right??

Proverbs 22:6 says to train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

I truly felt that like a delicious cake- if we pour all the right ingredients into our children that everything would turn out perfect in the end... with icing on top! At this time in my life when the boys were small, I would hear of older parents going through struggles with their teens and seriously, the first thought I would have is I would wonder what went wrong in parenting!! I felt that maybe they missed out on all of Dr. James Dobson's parenting books! I'm telling you, I have been humbled beyond words in my beliefs!

If you are a mother who is questioning these things like "What did you do wrong? Are you a bad parent?"... Dear One, you haven't done anything wrong! If you and your husband have raised your son or daughter to trust in God, to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior, to follow Him in all their ways.. You have done everything right! That IS the most you can do.

Reading the story of the Prodigal Son has made Proverbs 22:6 become clearer and clearer to me. We train our children up in the loving admonition of the Lord and "if" they do wander... if they run through all their inheritance, so to speak, if they make a real mess of things.. God promises that one day they will remember and they will return to the foundations set before them. They will return...

I am clinging to that promise.. I claim that promise!