As I sit here in my thoughts musing over the past 23 years I have been a mother I wonder what could I have done differently. I know I did the best I knew how at the time. I loved my kids with a love that is hard to explain to the motherless and sometimes even hard to explain to other mothers.
Mothering is not for the faint at heart. Mothering is hard. If you think those nights of no sleep and a crying baby are hard wait until they are a young adult. There has never been anything harder in my entire life (and my life has not been a cakewalk) than raising adult children. They have adult problems that make you still want to gather them under your wing and protect them from but that's not an option. Your option is to let them work it out so they grow and mature while giving them advice, when they are open to it. If they are open to your advice then it's a wonderful time to grow closer and develop that adult to adult relationship.
Then there's the one that is not open to your advice. Not open to living how they were raised. Not open to sensible thinking, it seems. This is the most heartbreaking part of mothering. Now as a mother you have to sit back and let the chips fall where they may. You can't protect. You can't make it go away. It's not going away. It will be with them for the rest of their life. You can grieve. You can pray. You can cry and scream but in the end they have to live with the consequences of their choices. Adult consequences. Consequences that can have effects that last years. Consequences that will change your life and who you are forever.
I am thankful I have an all knowing God who is there to comfort me and carry me through this time.
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