Like most moms, I struggle with worrying about my kids. About their futures, about their safety, about what opportunities we’ll be able to provide for them. I have to rest in God’s love for them!
I struggle with worry and fear. It’s been a life-long thing. Sometimes I start thinking so far into the future and I have to reel things in.
I have to realize God loves my kids more than I love my kids.
I want to control things. I want to make sure they have opportunities, that everything is going to fall into place for them.
But I have to realize God has a perfect plan for their individual lives, and He loves them so much more than I could ever love them. He died for them.
I am a long-range planner. I always have been. I was always planning out my whole life from the time I was a little kid. (I’ve even written an eBook guide on how to give yourself a planning retreat!)
My oldest child just finished first grade this year at a university model school. It is part-time homeschool and part-time Christian school.We love it, and it works out really well for our family.
Thankfully we can afford it right now.
I found out about this school when she was two years old. We were low-income at the time and barely had enough money at the end of the month to eat.
So when she was two, I made a plan to be able to send her to the school. This was four years before she started school because she started when she was six years old.
I knew the school granted scholarships. I prayed: “Lord, please let me somehow have enough money and get a partial scholarship to send her to school.”
God totally provided, and four years later we were able to pay cash for the entire first year (without scholarships to boot!).
The second year came. Again, we were able to pay cash.
You would think I would look at that and think “God, you have been so faithful, and this was the desire of our hearts. Obviously you wanted her to go there too because you provided the money for that.”
But, instead, I find myself thinking about how next year we are going to have a second grader and a kindergartener. And two years after that our third child will enter school.
How will we ever be able to afford Christian school for all of our children?!
We have already set aside the money needed to send both of our school-age children to this school next year, but then I jump even further ahead.
Are we going to be able to afford to send all three girls to this school every year all the way through high school?
And then I go so far as to think this: If we ever have a fourth kid, how can we then afford to send all four kids to this school?
We don’t even know if the Lord is going to have us in the same town then.
But in my mind I was thinking: “We probably shouldn’t have a fourth kid because we don’t know how we can afford to send a fourth kid to that school.”
Instead of focusing on the blessings of today, I spiraled down a hole of temptation that led me to jump ahead and worry about the future.
Is that not crazy?!
I went from looking at God’s blessing of today with being able to pay cash for our oldest to go to this school for the first two years to thinking about this hypothetical fourth child.
It was right then and there that God reminded me again that He loves my girls more than I love them.
He is going to provide for exactly what they need.
I have known God since I was nine years old, and He has proven faithful over and over again.
This Christian school thing is just an example from my personal life, but it can be anything.
God loves our kids more than we love them.
We can worry about them getting sick.
We can worry if they will find jobs or spouses when they are adults.
We need to pray about those things, yes, but it all goes back to the fact that God loves our kids more than we love them.
If you’re a mom, you know how much love you have for your kids. Just imagine how much more He loves them. And He loves us, too.
Do you find yourself worrying about your kids’ futures? Share in the comments!
This post was based off of a periscope that I recorded nearly a year ago. I decided to share it as a post now because I’ve been dealing with these very same feelings again lately, and I needed the reminder that: God loves my children more than I do!
Morgan
I totally agree; it’s only natural to worry about your children and their future, but having faith that things will work out the way that they are supposed is every parent’s saving grace. I really like your perspective here. Very inspirational and encouraging! Thank you so much for sharing these words!
Erin
Thanks, Morgan!
Lisa @ This Pilgrim Life
I have gone through a lot of these feelings over the past year since losing our baby, and then being blessed with another pregnancy, but one with health concerns and an early delivery. It has been a long season of learning to trust God through loss and with an uncertain future. There was not one moment, though, where I didn’t know that God was for me and that I could rest in His sovereign goodness. Those two words, His sovereignty and His goodness, have been my rock. The fact is the future is not guaranteed– we do not know what it will bring. But like you said, remembering His love and learning to rest in His promises will keep us from being overcome by worry and anxiety.
Also, this is something I am still (and always will be) learning to do!
Vanessa
Totally me every day! Now my kids are 17, 16, 15, 13, and 11 and they are wanting to go out and hang out with friends. Drive everywhere especially my 17 year old. She will be graduating in 2017 and she will decide where to go to college. I don’t feel ready for a lot of these different things they want and do. I trust God but I think I still want to control my kids and protect them as much as I can.
Kristen @ Joyfully Thriving
Wow, Erin. This is completely me, too! I appreciate knowing I’m not the only Mom struggling with this. Thanks for this reminder to trust God with our most important blessings – our children.
Veronica
I am a new Mom (baby girl is three months) and I’ve never known worry like I do now. Sone days I feel like it is overtaking me. I feel physically sick from worrying about my little girl. I am constantly praying and turning it over to God, just to pick it back up again. Thank you for this reminder!
Rebecca
Serious transparency here, in the anonymity of the internet.
I worry that one day my husband’s severe, chronic depression will win, and that our little girl will grow up without her daddy. I worry that she won’t even remember him, and how very much he loves her. I worry that I’d have to go back to work, and wouldn’t be able to homeschool her, something my husband and I have talked about since we started dating in high school. I worry that she will inherit a tendency to depression, just like my husband did from his mother. I’ve been sick to my stomach with worry about the possibilities lately.
Thank you for the reminder that God will provide. He loves her more than I ever could, and he will take care of her, no matter what.
Jennifer
Thank you so much for posting this! This is me! It’s a hard and exhausting life. I need to remind myself more often of this truth. Oh, how I appreciate you bringing it to my attention today.
Erin
Give yourself grace, Mama!
Eunice
I really worry about my grandchildren. All the articles floating around on fb about kidnappers just makes me go crazy. I know we should trust God but it’s easier said than done.