02 Jan 5 Non-Resolutions for the New Year

I don’t resolute. As in, I have no New Year’s resolutions. Not once, not ever, have I kept a resolution. In fact, I stopped being able to button my pants BEFORE Christmas, so that is when I reactivated my gym membership. I’m not one to stand in front of the mirror and catalogue my myriad of flaws, but pants that cannot contain all of the goodness are an objective, measurable standard. But I digress.

It’s no secret if you know me in real life, that parenting for me is at once a glorious, terrifying, and sometimes painful sanctification process.

I’ve grabbed a handful of reminders that just so happen to coincide with the New Year, but they are not resolutions, because I don’t resolute, remember? These are my current stakes in the ground when I am in the wind, unanchored by the weight of my own emotions. So I’d thought I’d share. I know, I KNOW, I am not alone on this journey.

Five Non-Resolutions for the New Year

One: Say YES more. Yes to blue hair, yes to snuggles, yes to Dinosaur shoes, T-Rexes in backpacks, countless games of Jenga, and my sons’ neverending requests to draw them things to color. Therre will be so many things to say a good No to, that I am determined to let Yes fall from my lips as much as humanly possible.

Two: Know the Word more. Teach it to my babes more. If all else fails, they are hiding His word in their heart and it will not return barren. But remember ….

Three: Progress, not perfection, is the goal. I wish I could tattoo this on my soul. Parenting is a journey. A hard, beautiful, sometimes non-linear, always sanctifying journey. Progress, not perfection.

Four: In the same vein, friends, comparison is the thief of joy. Parenting is really the place I struggle with this the most, but it has so much power if I let it. I am so, so thankful for grace.

Five: And yes, GRACE. To practice both the giving and receiving.

“He’s bestowed upon you His forgiving, rescuing, transforming, and delivering grace, so that you could be His tool of the same in the lives of each of your children. His gift of grace is not just so that you would be a recipient of grace but also a daily instrument of that very same grace in the lives of those he has placed in your care. In His grace you find everything you need to be what God wants you to be in the lives of your children and to do what He has called you to do with them…..this grace reaches wherever God has placed you. This grace reaches you in your darkest parenting moments. This grace addresses your feeling of inability. This grace touches you when you feel you are at the end of your wisdom. This grace is yours for the taking when you are walking down the hallway and you know you’ve just blown it.” – Paul Tripp, Parenting

Fellow mamas, this is at once the most marvelous and unnerving thing I can grasp about parenting.

It requires surrender, but produces great freedom.

I pray you know the grace and peace of Christ as you shepherd your children forward. I pray we can all take hold of it as we move through 2017.

What are your stakes, your non-resolute reminders as you wonder at what the New Year will hold?

Happy New Year.

~M.