A walk with a close friend today reminded me of an important principle. No matter what stage of parenting you are in, being in community is key.
Preferably a segment of your overall community will be peeps in the same season of life as you. One of the many reasons for this is that without it you can easily slip into the mindset that your difficulties and failures are unique to you and that everyone else has it all together. All the other Mom’s houses are spotless. The other Dad’s never lose their temper. Your baby is the only one not sleeping 12 hours a night. No one else has ever had this much trouble getting the newborn to nurse. These are of course all not true. Sure, some portion of people you talk with will (annoyingly) have one or two of your struggles covered and make it look easy, but if you talk long enough you will see there are other things they are currently working through.
But here is the big warning. You can go too far with this. Depending on your personality you may have to really guard against group-think. One challenging thing in parenting (and all of life really) is to do what you feel like that still small voice is telling you to do. Especially as parenting goes on through the years you will see big differences between approaches to parenting. You can’t be blown about by the wind, even if that wind is coming from very dynamic, alpha-type personalities or people you look up to.
Honestly, I have seen loads of very holy-type people that so many looked up to that were a wreck when it came to parenting. Do what you God is putting on your heart and don’t compromise. I have plenty of examples, many I will share in future posts, where we have made a hard choice that we didn’t see anywhere else we looked and in each case we have been incredibly blessed by it.
God speaks to us through community. He wants us to be in community. We must just make sure that you act on inspiration from Him alone, however He chooses to deliver it. Often it is in community that God uses someone to plant a seed that He will then water over time. We must be willing to choose Him and His voice above all others. And who knows, God may start with you and use you and your example to change a whole community of families… if you choose to listen to His still small voice.