Close the door, were you born in a barn?

I can't count the number of times I have heard another parent link a child's behavior with the way they were raised.  More often than not, it seems that when a child or teen exhibits an unfavorable behavior, an assumption is made that the parents must not have done a good enough job raising the kid.

If the parent taught the kid: good manners, polite language, sharing, kindness, patience, generosity, healthy eating and exercise habits, modesty, respect for adults, good money management, Christian principals, safe driving, strong academic discipline, and on and on and on, then the kid would OBVIOUSLY do all those things.

But we know this isn't actually true.

I taught my boys to brush their teeth when they wake up and go to bed, change their underwear and socks every day, wash their hands before dinner, and an entire assortment of other things that they don't always do.  It doesn't mean I didn't teach them, the kids just didn't necessarily buy into.

There are things we teach them that they don't do, and there are things we don't teach them that they do.  While our role as parents is very influential and incredibly important, the kids are still making their own choices as they grow into their own persons.

Today I came across the most powerful words that have passed before my eyes in a while, or maybe just the exact words I needed to read today.

"His love and his mercy are greater than any mistakes you have made as a parent".

We do a lot of things right as parents, and maybe we do a lot of things wrong BUT we can take comfort in knowing that in the areas where we have failed, there is a God greater than our failures.  His grace is sufficient to fill in where we are lacking.

Maybe I failed to teach my son how to ride a bike without training wheels, but by the grace of God we visited my cousin's house one year for 4th of July and all the Aunties, Uncles, cousins and even great grandparents stepped in to run along side my boy and teach him to ride.  Their instructions and encouragement were not any different than mine, but sometimes the words need to come from someone else in order to really hear or understand them.  Sometimes you really do have to fall off that bike before you figure out what you are doing wrong.

Some parents may have done everything right and their kids turned out just like they hoped and dreamed...others are like me and dropped the ball here or there and have kids that are pushing and pulling and trying to figure out who they want to be and growing up is messy.

For the parents that fall into the second group, join me in thanking God for filling in for us when we fail.