Today Lily threw a temper tantrum which involved screaming and a matchbox car flying through the air. Now, as tantrums go, this one wasn't too terrible, but my little girl did remind me of a certain former little girl who had quite a temper, too. I saw that she was out of control, so before starting the discipline process I just held her in my arms until she was calm.
"Get it together, Lily. Calm down," I said. She responded, "I can't! Please help me."
In that moment, I saw myself as a child in my dad's arms as he soothed me after a tantrum of my own and I knew that I needed to do for my daughter what my parents did for me. I needed to help her.
It is my great responsibility to help my children to fight temptation. I need to help them to fight the temptation to be selfish, to complain, to be lazy and more. This is the responsibility of every parent and yet so many parents do not take this seriously. It is a little frightening to dwell on this responsibility because of the great "what if": What if we fail?
"Was I a fool to even take on this whole parenting job?" I ask myself. "Can I handle it?" Well, if it were all up to me, then yes, I would fail. Unquestionably. But the same God who gave to Joshua and me these children will also see to it that they are raised in the way He designed for them. He has and will give us the strength, wisdom and grace to care for these young souls.
So today I cry to my Heavenly Daddy, "I can't! Please help me." And He will. I know it.
And maybe there are things I should be doing to make it easier to do my job. Perhaps a good option would be for me to take Lily's advice. After she calmed down enough to speak after her tantrum, she spoke these words of wisdom: "Why don't we just get rid of Malachi?"
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