Parenting Again, Just When You Thought It Was Over
December 7, 2019 Adrienne Brown 0 Comments
You probably have asked yourself the question, why would I start parenting again? Parenting was over for me!
Why would I want to go through sleepless nights, poopie diapers, ear-piercing screams, and having someone constantly in my arms or under my feet, again?
After all, parenting again would require me to change diapers, potty train, cook, clean, counsel, and mediate other people’s lives all over again!
Yes, it would mean that you would have to deal with running around the city, going back and forth to a hundred different appointments, and dealing with school.
If your kids are older and active, that means sports activities! If you are starting again, as an older parent, then you have been through all of this before and you know exactly what all of this is going to cost you.
I know I did. So, finding the answers to these questions was gold when my husband and I were thinking about parenting again through adoption.
“This foster parenting again thing, You do know it is a ministry, don’t you?”
The answer in a light bulb moment happened for me, when an elderly woman said to me, “This parenting again thing, You do know it is a ministry, don’t you? To which I responded yes indeed!
Deciding to parent again through adoption, relative placement or fostering is a serious ministry in more ways than one.
You will find that God will stretch you beyond your first season of parenting. He will do it by moulding and equipping you for this new role.
It is a place of great influence, power, and responsibility given to you from God.
You will see that It is where you can minister and disciple an individual life, one on one. Helping to shape that life for the coming future that is sure to happen.
The children placed into our lives whether naturally or through other circumstances, is no haphazard spiritual accident.
No, it is an intentional weaving of the fibers of our lives. A God-given ministry that we may be hating at times, but a ministry we must learn to love in order to complete it.
Feelings of irritation or overwhelm?
Caring for other people and having to juggle various personalities can be irritating, overwhelming and scary, especially when you are older. Yet God has promised to help us.
1. He promises that He will carry us through whatever is hard for us,
–1 Corinthians 10:13
Believe me when I tell you that God will carry you through. We have spent many days and nights struggling to get through a situation with one of our kids in our own strength.
At times, I was irritated to the point of giving up. Only after handing it over to the Lord, were we able to find answers.
He fixed the problem and healed our hearts from that thing. Parenting this second time around is done with and in God’s strength.
2. Parenting all over again, it is a ministry. James 1:27
So, if you are doing this parenting thing all over again, then know the Lord is using you to fulfil His command to help orphans and widows.
Now, it may not be that your child is an orphan, where their parents have died. But it is like a death for a child in a way, because they are separated from the parent.
It just maybe your grandchildren that you have custody of at this time. Whatever the situation, trust God’s leading.
You as the one, the foster parenting standing in the gap, you must see it as a ministry. You may never go to a foreign country, on a mission trip, or you may never go work for a world outreach ministry.
Yet, you do have a mission right in your home with the kids’ God has placed there. Parenting them is a ministry that is so very important.
3. God must think that you are worthy of this foster parenting ministry!
Yes, don’t ever forget that! God has given you this ministry! He doesn’t waste His time on people who do not want to be used by Him. God will give us a job to do, He equips us to do it, and He expects us to walk in our purpose. As demonstrated in the story of the talents.
4. Motherhood is a hard demanding job at any age.
When I worked for bank of America I worked the night shift and got paid good money for all of my hard work and effort. Well, mothering requires that you work night shift and any other shift required and you do not get paid.
5. Call on other women in this same stage. Women who are foster parenting.
Never forget you are always in some sort of ministry!
Our lives are not our own, even though we tend to live that way. Yet, God is the author and finisher of our existence. Everything that comes our way, He is sovereign over it! That is good and the bad. Nothing gets past Him.
He is the grand weaver of life. So, if you have children in your life again, He has orchestrated it in a way that you can serve Him.
He loves you and is for you, keeps working in your God-ordained ministry!
