Here Be DragonsNäide

THE AUTHOR OF HER STORY

As a young mom, I believed it was my job to protect Caroline. What I didn’t real­ize was that I could do my best and bad things were still going to happen. We live in a broken world, full of broken people. And if I’m always trying to be Caroline’s savior, then I’m not letting her lean into the fact that Christ is her Savior.

Over time, God has revealed to me the parts of my heart that needed to be healed, the ways I needed to trust Him more, and how to see myself as He saw me. He has broken a generational cycle that had told the women in my family to find their value in everything but His love.

Psalm 128:1–4 is a reminder to me—and I hope an encouragement to you—to keep the faith even when all seems lost:

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,

who walk in obedience to him.

You will eat the fruit of your labor;

blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine

within your house;

your children will be like olive shoots

around your table.

Yes, this will be the blessing

for the man who fears the Lord.

Our trust in God’s plans for our kids can’t be dependent on everything turning out like we hoped. Whatever life looks like for you is no less meaningful just because it looks different than you imagined.

The reality is, that we can do all the right things and pray all the right prayers, and our kids are still going to have struggles. God has given them free will, and sometimes they are going to make bad decisions no matter how hard we worked to prevent that.

When Caroline left home after high school, it felt like an ending. But it has truly been the most beautiful beginning to the future God has written for her. It’s given us a clearer vision of how He used her past struggles to uniquely equip her to step into what He had ahead. It’s helped me see that sometimes the best prayer we can pray as parents is “God, this one is Yours. You are the author of her story, and I trust You to write an amazing one.”

How have you already seen God use your struggles, and your daughter’s struggles, to draw closer to Him?

We hope you find this reading plan encouraging. To learn more about HERE BE DRAGONS by Melanie Shankle click here .