Over the last few months, I’ve been really convicted on my parenting. I want my daughters to leave my house prepared to serve, live, love and grow with the Lord. But it can be overwhelming. A lot. I’m required to grapple with their sin nature while dealing with my own. That’s hard work. Yet, stronger and stronger the desire and urgency grows within me to capture their little hearts and lead them the right way.

One of my biggest fears in life is failure. Next to that is failure as a parent. Now, this may sound arrogant, but I’m not all that afraid of not being a “good” mom. I mean, I want my girls to look back and think I was good, but part of me feels like that will happen regardless (maybe because I’m that way with my mom). However, my fear of failure lies in not being a godly example as a parent. My fear is that Julia and Hannah would walk away from my house and not know, really know, the Lord. That is what scares me.

Jonathan and I have started taking steps to make our parenting more intentional, more focused. There are some major tasks at hand, but along with those are seemingly little things that my heart knows will make a difference. One of those little things is computer time. Since we moved our computer upstairs after the remodel, I found myself getting online a lot. At first it was to just “quick check something”. That morphed into checking something else, then something else and before I knew it, I was ignoring Julia because I was too distracted by the web. I slowly realized that I was showing Julia that my time online was more important than spending time with her, her dad, her sister and even God. So I made a commitment to my family, that in order to be more intentional in my parenting, I would only have a designated time to be online. I committed to only getting on 1) during naps (like right now), 2) when Jonathan is home and we are both looking at something together, and 3) during Julia’s blanket time.

I know it seems small, but for my heart it’s a big deal. It’s choosing to say no to self and yes to God and His calling on my life. And really, it’s quite liberating.