Parent’s Guilt

It’s hard work trying to be a good parent. Many of us want the best for our children, so we work tirelessly to help them grow up to be strong men and women of God. To the best of our ability, we attempt to provide everything they need in order to succeed in life spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Many parents have labored all day and stayed up all night because of the inner passion to have their children overcome where they may have failed in life.

However, even with the best of intentions, parents fail, and what follows is the parent’s guilt. Sometimes our guilt is the result of our sinful actions, and sometimes there are issues completely out of our control. The parent’s guilt knows how to hang on our hearts throughout the day and night. It lingers off to the side to remind us that we have stumbled and we can’t get a redo of the situation.

In James 3:2, we are reminded that we all stumble in many ways. Obviously, a stumble isn’t always predicted or foreseen. When walking along the way, we may become distracted or enthralled with a scene and find ourselves stumbling forward. Sometimes a stumble results in a fall, but most times we are able to regain our steps and keep going.

It is the same with Parent’s Guilt–we need to release it so God can continue to use us in the nurture, care, and admonishment of our children (both young and old). If we have sinned, confess it and receive forgiveness from God and/or others. If we have missed something due to our humanity, get over it. We are not perfect like Jesus, just being perfected in God. He can use our mistakes to reveal to our children our complete dependence on a perfect God.