The Best Job Ever

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

I spent the first 6 years of my life after college in an office. I worked myself up in the corporate realm as a graphic designer and when it was all said and done, when I heard that Paul and I were going to be parents, our life would be forever changed. Looking back, it all seemed so irrelevant, trivial, without meaning. To some, the proposals and accounts won were everything. To me it was meaningless. What was a project going to change? How would it make a difference in the world? For my company, we would make money and supposedly for the client they would save money. But in the end, did it change the lives of others? It sure didn't change mine, in fact, for everyone I worked with, it seemed like the projects were sucking the life out of everyone around me!

Becoming a parent was different. It changed my outlook on life. Now we had direction. We would now be responsible for the life of another helpless human being; providing for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of someone who couldn't provide for themselves. We took our jobs very seriously making us evaluate our own lives, our own belief systems. Some people think that it is their job to mold their children into "mini-me's". That hasn't been our philosophy through the years. It has been our response to teach our children to find their own strengths and weaknesses and help them be the best that they know how to be. They say that a parent's work is never finished. It is an unending job to walk alongside them through the various stages of life. How much the child asks for from the parent depends on how much the parent invests into the relationship with the child through the years.

I have examples of parents all around me. All of them are human, trying their best. Some don't have much to give. They didn't have great role models to learn from and some don't have the drive to read, to study, to join groups to teach them how to be better parents than what they had. I have been blessed from the very start. I joined a young MOM's group at the church we attended. From the very beginning I was surrounded by Godly women who modelled what it looked like to be a mom full of grace and love.

I read countless books written by Godly men and women who talked about how to balance law and rules with love and mercy. There are thousands of books written about parenting. They are all different but our generation is not lacking in wisdom or training. If you seek to be a good parent and you look for help we are blessed abundantly. One of the best couples we have ever known who model Christ-like parenting is Tim and Darcy Kimmel. They were our Sunday School teachers for many years. We have read all of their books. Their four adult children are a living testimony of grace-based parenting. We strongly believe in and support their ministry called Family Matters because their hearts are about training and equipping young parents how to train their children in how they should go.

Our daughter Abigail and our son Dylan, are truly two of the greatest gifts God has ever blessed us with. They bring us so much joy and they truly challenge us to be the best people we know how to be. From the start we have always claimed that we are human, we make mistakes, we will at times not do things perfectly, but we will do our best to make things right when we do fail and disappoint them. We have spent countless hours reading them Bible stories, studying for school, listening to their problems, sharing in their victories, attending church together, creating yearly traditions and memories on family vacations. At the end of my life, I will feel successful as a mom, if my kids grow up loving God with all their heart, souls and minds and if they learn to love others. Being a parent is the best job that God has given me! I praise Him for Paul and I to have been chosen to raise Abby and Dylan!