Shields and fruit.

 Parenting.  Wow it's hard work.  Some people get by with easier kids for less years and don't get what I'm handing out...but for the rest of us.....it's so hard.  It's every day hard and enjoy the moments when its not hard....It's what am I doing hard and Oh please, Lord, help me hard.  Much of the time I mess up and get it wrong and have to apologize....once in awhile I get it right.  It's just hard work. There are very few thank-yous....and so many demands....and it is really hard to measure if the work of the day is making things better or worse.  

I had joined a group online to try to read through the bible in a year because, well, why not, right?  So I read on Jan 1 and then not on Jan 2 because of the wedding and I have basically been behind ever since.  Today I spent some time in Genesis and Psalms and Matthew and my take away is that the Lord is my shield that protects me....and is calling me to bear good fruit.  It occurs to me that both lessons apply to my parenting experience as well.  I need protection, and the shield of God to deflect all the arrows of the devil that seek to hurt and distract me from the mission.  They are flying at me all the time.  I need that shield when I wake up in the morning to shove past the noise and chaos and arguing and make it to the bus stop every morning with 3 kids who cannot get there on their own.  I need the shield to protect me from the anger and frustration and demanding entitlement and whining on the weekends....that robs me of joy.  I also need the challenge to be a tree that bears good fruit.....because it's easier to not tend the garden, and not worry about feeding and watering this tree....but if I do not tend it and prune it and water it and fertilize it and turn its face to the sun (Son)....the fruit will not be good.  I desperately and ultimately wish to bear good fruit.  

I want the fruit I bear as a mom to be glorifying to God, to be useful and ripe and pleasing.  I want the fruit I bear to make a difference in the world.  That's why parenting is so hard.  It's hard because there is so much at stake and so many things that can go wrong.  Storms, drought, flooding, freezing, neglect.....all the things that kill plants....and me.  

In 2021 the world is pretty crazy and often unpleasant.  I can control what happens inside my front door more than what is happening outside and so I purpose myself to do just that.  Take up my shield.....and be a tree that bears good fruit.  It's a full time job.