It is funny (ok not so funny) how being a parent is much like a punishment for all those trials that we doled out to our parents. I remember sitting at the counter in the kitchen in my home in Southern Idaho sobbing uncontrollably that my parents couldn't possibly understand and that they were wrong. Of course, several years later in my repentent mode, I recognized that they not only understood but they were right. The funny part isn't how we replay the situation on the other side, it is that it is tremendously more painful on the parent side. I am stating this because I have been on both sides and lying the cards down next to each other, this is harder all the way around.

This is why I think it is:

First - I love my children more than life itself. I will never leave my children, but they will leave me. It is part of the plan. So no matter what hurtful things they say or do, I will always love them. I remember thinking at the time that I had my first son, I will never again just be me. Forever...I will be his mother.

Second - I have been there before. I lived the "drama" of being a teenager and I would never do it again, even if I was paid. I convinced myself that my parents were unfair, unloving, hateful and unchristian. There were a lot of things that I thought my parents were or weren't. They didn't know. Truth is that now that I am a parent, I am convinced that I know even less. As much as I pray for it, my children's instruction booklet has not been FedEx'd to me.

Third - What I did learn as a teenager was extremely painful as a result of my refusal to listen. The result were consequences that I was unable to see because I was proud. As an adult, I have learned that pride is the destruction of all good. It makes us believe that we are invincible, infalible and indestructible. My friend said this about her daughter that has been in the arena of bad decisions, "She wants to eat her cake and have her cake." Choices seem so easy when we interpret that the decisions we are making are based on solid information. When we are sixteen nothing is solid. The ground gets jerked out from underneath us moment by moment. Parents have been there, done that. And no matter what a teenager has been told, we remember what it is like to be there. We remember the pain of our decisions. They haunt us in our children's choices. We can run but never hide, we can cry in sorrow for repentence but we still know because we can still remember how it could have been.

Fourth - Despite all the love in the world, I will always just be the mother. What could I possibly know with all my flaws? Trust me there are many when it comes to me. There are many things I wish as a person I did or didn't do, but as a parent the list is surmount. I wish, no I pray daily that my children will look back on their childhoods and understand that I did the best job with the information that I had at that moment. But more importantly, I have come to the realization that the process of parenting requires humility. My willingness to realize that I don't know it all, but what I do know (from the joys and sorrow of experience) will help my children if they are willing to lay down the gauntlet so to speak and allow me the privilege to lead them through the briers, around the land minds, below the low hanging branches and above the mud of life.

Despite all of that, they have the ability to make choices. Mistakes are part of life. I remember telling my daughter that my job was to place as many stones in the river so that they could cross with less difficulty. I can only pray that they will "choose" to jump to the next one.