Loving our Children: Parenting by Grace

It’s February, and we are focusing on love, so this week I thought we’d focus on loving our children. Many years ago, I was interviewed for a podcast on “parenting by grace”; the interviewer asked me to define the phrase. I told her this story about a time I began parenting by grace, stumbled along the way, and was graciously returned to sanity—by God!

Parenting by Grace: A Story

Our 18 and 20-year-old were going on a missions trip to Ecuador. Though the leaders of the group were not officially suggesting they get vaccinations, I asked my kids to check out what travel advisors suggested. Parenting by grace means we give our children rules and expect obedience, but we don’t make their obedience a condition of our love for them.

My children procrastinated a bit but ultimately responded to my request by making inquiries and plans to get the suggested shots. But then they discovered that the missions agency in Ecuador didn’t really consider them essential and that others weren’t taking this precaution.

This is where I started getting—well, angry. If the CDC recommends them, then why wouldn’t the missions organization? Find out, I demanded, what the doctors in the group are doing.

[Grumble grumble grumble (That was me, not my children)].

They again obeyed, and it was ultimately determined that most medical authorities agreed the shots weren’t necessary.

Somewhere along the way, I thought about my anger and grumbling. There’s certainly nothing wrong and everything right with wanting to protect our children from disease. It is also good and right to expect young adults to follow through on our direction, and for the most part, they had.

So I wondered—what made me so angry? Almost always behind my anger, I discover one of two things, or both:

1. desire for control.
2. fear.

I’m pretty sure both were operative here. When we are parenting out of fear or desire for control, there’s a good chance we’ve shifted our trust—from God to ourselves.

What Parenting by Grace Might Look Like

To answer the interviewer’s question, here’s what parenting by grace looked like practically at that point:
1. Recognize the reality that I’m trusting in myself rather than God.
2. Repent. Tell God the truth (which he already knows).
3. Relinquish. Tell God I trust him to care for my children better than I do.
4. Rejoice. Celebrate. Enjoy the preparations for the trip and let everyone else enjoy them too.
5. Rest. I can honestly say I did rest. My children went to Ecuador, and I prayed all sorts of prayers for the whole team, and my heart remained (mostly) calm.

Addendum: They did return healthy and very very happy!! Thanks be to God :-)!

What do you think parenting by grace looks like? Do you have a story of stumbling and then recognizing that something was going wrong with your parenting?

A Prayer about Parenting by Grace

Heavenly Father, we acknowledge that you are the only perfect parent. Our sin-born tendency to seek control and avoid fear causes us to stumble as earthly parents. Please, by your grace, help us to recognize when we’re going wrong, to repent more quickly, and to rejoice and rest in your boundless grace. Amen

Photo by Brittany Simuangco on Unsplash