The Road Less Traveled By

For straight is the Gate and narrow is the Road that leads to life and few find it.

-Jesus

I've been thinking about parenting lately.  Probably because my sister is pregnant and I've been pelting her with advice and parenting tips, flinging book titles and podcasts at her that have helped me along the way.  

The truth is, that motherhood is a journey and no one can audit the class because you are especially well read.  

Now is the moment I am suppossed to say, BUT...and go into the lengthy how-to's of parenting.  However, someone once told me that using the word "but" automatically negates anything said beforehand.  

So instead, I shrug.  My mother gave me that shrug. It means, there is no way that I can do this for you, you become a mother entirely on your own, no shortcuts.  

When mothers look at me and ask me questions, sometimes I give lengthy all out answers and advice (like with my poor darling sister, bless her heart), but sometimes- I just give them the shrug.  

Motherhood is hard work, like grammar school, and it's the tool the Teacher is using to shape me.  My habits, the stucture of my life.  It's taking out the things that I let in in my young adulthood and bringing me back to a place of child-likeness.  And there the four of them are, the living models of childhood, right in front of me.  

Fighting. Forgiving. Laughing. 

Testing. Softening. Growing. 

Sinning. Repenting. Restoring.  

 And when I look at that list of words, I realize that it is really God that is working all those good things in us. 

...Following this worn down rabbit trail through life, sometimes I wonder if it really is the right one, but I know that He is the One who will make all the difference.   

-Alissa