One Day At a Time

This one's for Kestrel, and any other moms who struggle with challenging kids!

So, a month or two ago I attended a lecture by Richard Eyre, as I have previously mentioned. In his presentation, he told a story that I loved, because it gave me a new perspective on raising kids who are a challenge.

He said that one summer, on a family vacation in Idaho, they were attending church services, and in their Sunday School class, there was another visitor who had all the answers to everything. For every question that the teacher asked, this gentleman raised his hand and told how his valedictorian son had done this, or his straight "A," prom queen daughter had done that, and how he and his wife had figured out how to raise perfect kids, and this and that. It got to be really irritating to the entire class. Finally, towards the end of the lesson, one old farmer-type fellow quietly stood up, turned around to face this obnoxious person, and remarked, "Well the Lord must not have thought too much of you as parents to send you all them easy kids."

Well said!

I remember my dear friend Karen often saying that people who had easy kids would have hard teenagers, and people who have hard kids would have easy teenagers! For Moms with hard little ones, let's hope that's true! (-;

I don't claim to have really difficult kids--in fact, I am lucky in that they are pretty easy--most days! But there are always those days that the only thing I can do is just repeat over and over in my mind the words of an old hymn I remember hearing at the nursing home where I worked as a teenager: "One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that is all I am asking of you..."

Just take it one day at a time--this too shall pass!