Here Be DragonsNäide

BULLIES, BATTLES, AND BAGGAGE

When people ask me about the hardest years of my life, I’ll say, “High school,” and I won’t mean my own high school years; I’ll mean my daughter’s. I wasn’t prepared for the struggles the teenage years would bring. I found myself floundering, searching for that buried treasure of parenthood known as having the right answers.

I also didn’t know at the beginning of this journey how parenting, especially in the teen years, would cause me to deal with my own baggage from childhood.

Over twenty years ago, soon after my husband and I found out we would be having a daughter, God led me to this passage in Isaiah 44:

I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants.

They shall spring up among the grass

like willows by flowing streams.

This one will say, “I am the Lord’s.” (verses 3–5)

I’d spent most of my life trying to heal from a relationship with my mom that felt barren and cold, so I embraced the truth that God promised to pour out His Spirit and blessings on this new life, despite my own weaknesses and wounds.

After Caroline was born, I knew that I loved that baby in a way my own mother had never loved me. My mother’s affection was dependent on my being what she wanted me to be, often at the expense of my own needs and feelings. The only thing I wanted for Caroline was for her to find the peace and joy that come with being who God made her to be. One of my greatest joys in life is to watch that continue to happen.

But I didn’t realize the healing that God would have to do in my own life so my child could grow up in an emotionally healthy envi­ronment. I didn’t realize that even as I watched Caroline fight battles in adolescence, I would face battles in my own heart and soul.

Maybe you’re experiencing something similar. So let me give you hope: God never lets us down, even when things don’t look like we’d planned. He promises to nourish us even in the hardest moments, even in the generational trauma many of us mamas experience. He promises that we are overcomers—even in high school.

How was love communicated to you when you were a child? How does that influence your parenting?