I love being a mom. It has been the greatest joy of my life, and it has taught me more about love than anything else ever could. Even with all the work, the hard days, and the seasons that stretched me, I would not trade the vocation of motherhood for anything.
My husband, James, and I have nine children. Throughout the years, we have discovered that in the “school of parenting,” learning is hands-on, lessons are continual, and mastery doesn’t exist. We have decided that the role of a parent is the hardest job we will ever have, but we are certain it is also our greatest source of grace.
And now, in God’s kindness, we are also experiencing the joys of grandparenting. We have been parents for thirty-six years and are now grandparents to eight, with one more on the way into the world soon. Watching our children become parents and getting to love our grandchildren has been more rewarding than I ever could have imagined.
Surrendering our children to God's Providence
If motherhood has taught me anything, it is that my children belong first to God. Every season of parenting invites me to surrender not only my children, but even my very role as a mother, into the wisdom of His providence. In many ways, my heart is with my own children as they navigate the roles of parenting in today's world, where there are so many opinions that it can be overwhelming.
If there is one piece of advice I can give them, it is to never make prayer the last line of defense... make it the first. I hope my children learn early (it took me a little longer to truly understand this) that God loves our children even more than we do, and our petitions to Him on behalf of our children are never wasted.
Scripture constantly reminds us: “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:7)
Yet I know that surrendering our children to God is not as easy as we might think.“ …we must believe… that nothing occurs except by His order and permission.” —Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure. When we remember that God's goodness cannot be surpassed and that all things come from Him, we can rest assured that our children are in the best of hands.
Even when we believe this with our mind, living it out as parents can be a different matter.
Attachment to our children
When our children are young, we are attached to them in an important way; we have a certain amount of control over what they do, who they see, and where they go. We lose this control as they get older, and we are forced to detach a little. Eventually, our children head out into the world. They make their own choices. It can feel like we are watching from the sidelines. Sometimes their choices result in suffering for them (and for us), and it is hard to witness. No doubt this is one of the most challenging aspects of parenting.
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I recall a spiritual retreat where the priest asked us to consider those things we might be overly attached to. He challenged us to think about our children. I realized that it is easy for me to imagine how I might be attached to material things, such as possessions, food, or technology, but it was harder to consider how, at times, I have had a disordered attachment to people (even my own children). The problem is usually our attachment to our expectations, goals, or plans for their lives. We want to cling to our own will for them rather than to seek God’s will.
Learning to contemplate God’s Will
Surrendering to God’s plan for our children’s lives can be just as hard as surrendering in our own personal lives. After all, we brought our children into this world. We’ve spent time, money, energy, sleepless nights, and perhaps many hours in prayer for their sakes; it’s no wonder that we feel we have a stake in their lives. But sometimes our dreams for our children get us off track, especially when we put our desires before God’s.
A few years back, a friend gave me the book Praying the Scriptures for Your Adult Children. In one chapter about trusting God with those we love, a mother gave a testimonial. In it, she confessed that she had to let go of her own hopes and aspirations for her children and surrender them to God:
“We were living the dream, raising a son who succeeded at everything. Yet I didn’t realize that we had set up two idols on our mantle: appearance and achievement. Those idols got smashed, along with our pride—but this ultimately opened the door to real freedom, security, and trust in God.”
Praying the Scriptures for your Adult Children, by Jody Berndt
Detachment can be painful. When it comes to our older children, the urge to step in and try to force them to choose one way or the other can be strong. Yet, as it did for the mother in the prayer book, this usually fails.
It helps to remember that when I surrender my children to God, even when they sin, He always has them covered in His mercy in ways that far exceed my own ability to love and forgive them. Scripture tells us, “Where sin is, grace overflows all the more” (Romans 5:20).
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God is good. If I had looked into the future and seen the bumpy roads that lay ahead for James and me on our parenting journey, I might have been fearful. Yet He has given us what we needed for each season, often one day at a time, and the grace to meet it. It’s hard to believe that we now have only one at home, our youngest, who is a junior in high school.
The longer I have been a mother, the more I see that surrender is not something you accomplish once and then move on. It is something you return to, over and over, in ordinary moments and in the hard ones.
In our vocations, whatever they are, we might grow tired, but God never does. If God’s grace is truly sufficient for every season, then my task is not to live ahead of the day. It is to receive what is in front of me with trust and to stay willing to be led.
Recognizing that our emotions are involved
This is especially hard as a parent, because love naturally comes with strong feelings. When something concerns our children, our emotions can rise quickly and convince us that we must act immediately or have answers right now. But surrender often asks us to remain unemotional and await the discernment of God's will.
In the Good Catholic series, Thy Will Be Done, we learn that “holy indifference” is: "when we don’t have an inclination towards one direction or another, but rather pause to see what God’s will is by the unfolding of providential events.” To do this, we have to set aside our emotions at times because our feelings can’t always be trusted: “Our will never needs the permission of our emotions to submit to the will of God.” (Thy Will Be Done).
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How necessary it is for me to remember this as a mother. It is easy to get caught up in the feelings I have for my children and become anxious for the future.
Left to ourselves, our own will easily becomes tangled in fear, pride, and short-sighted plans. But God’s will leads us into what is truly good, even when the path is hidden. This is why Scripture gives us a prayer that never becomes outdated:
“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path” (Ps. 143:10).
In some ways, grandparenting has reinforced this lesson for me. It comes with a more natural detachment, and that detachment makes it easier to remember that God is in control and that prayer is essential.
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Our example is Our Blessed Mother
Mary is our model for holy indifference. Her words at the Annunciation, “Let it be done according to Thy word,” express her whole existence. She was always and everywhere the handmaid of the Lord.
I have even heard it said that true devotion to Our Lady is disinterested; that is to say, it inspires the soul not to seek itself, but God. This seems to be the basis for holy detachment as well. The danger in becoming too attached to something other than God is that it allows for self-love to enter in. Even when it is based on love, such as a love for our children, we can become attached to our own desires and place them in front of God’s desires for us and for those we care about.
On this Mother's Day, I am grateful for the lessons learned on my parenting and grandparenting journey.
Let's ask the Blessed Mother to continue to be our guide and to remind us to always surrender those we love to God.
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!
