Just look at that face. How can anybody get mad at that sweet little face? I’ll tell you why, because in the middle of life spinning around you like a whirlwind, moms can make mistakes. We are human, we are but dust. But the anguish of those mistakes is multiplied when you have no more chances to take them back.
One of my biggest regrets is treating Tristan like he was being disobedient instead of realizing he had a mental illness. I yelled. I got to my wit’s end. I argued and had standoffs over important issues and some not-so-important issues.
Then I remembered something my mentor told me years ago. When you ask God for wisdom, He gives it. (James 1:5)
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
God graciously allowed me to implement this during the last days of Tristan’s life. If Tristan was talking, I was praying silently “give me wisdom” over and over and over. It kept me from reacting in my flesh during specific moments where I just know I would have yelled or gotten into an argument I would have regretted after he died.
But what about all those times I wasn’t praying and I failed? I know I caused Tristan sorrow!
Didn’t that happen to Jesus with the guys He loved the most? His best friends deserted Him in His agony. In the garden of Gethsemane when He specifically asked them to pray for Him, Jesus found them sleeping from sorrow! They all fled when Jesus was led away by soldiers. Peter flat-out denied knowing Him. Fail, fail, fail, fail. And yet, these guys were the ones God ordained to be the guys.
Just like we were the ones God ordained to be our child’s mom. God knew ahead of time all the ways we would fail. And all of it was wrapped up in all the ways we didn’t fail. We loved them. They knew it. God used that love to be His hands and His feet to care for them.
Of course our parenting wasn’t perfect because we are human! But the gospel that saved our children, and the gospel that saved us, makes provision for that failure. It’s not too late to go back in time and share with the Lord your sorrow over the times you wish you would have handled things differently. But as you do that, know this, your child in heaven is not thinking about your failures. They have the mind of Christ and see things from God’s perspective. God remembers our sins no more. (Heb 8:12)
We can’t fall into the enemy’s trap and let the regrets weigh us down. Take 1 John 1:9 to heart:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Confess and keep casting those memories onto the Lord who will remove them “as far as the east is from the west”. (Ps. 103:12) We have a cloud of witnesses in heaven, including our children, cheering us on and waiting for us! (Heb. 12:1)
Dear God, please help me to remember when I am tempted to think about all the ways I failed Tristan, that he is not up there with You thinking about that. And You have cleansed me from ALL of my failures with him. They just don’t exist. Let your Holy Spirit prompt me to give that to You every time I am tempted to bring it up again. And please, just take it away. I can’t wait to see my boy. Now he is known and fully knows all the reasons for his story. Save me from myself. In Jesus name, Amen.
