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Some days this is exactly how I feel.<\/p>\n
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In many areas of my life I feel strong and capable. In some areas I feel I can leap tall building in a single bound.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s where it gets a little muddy. Some days I feel weak and inadequate as a parent. I read my bible. I\u2019ve read some really great Christian parenting resources and even attending a few training sessions. In fact, I myself have written and taught an eight-week class on raising Godly children. Yet, in spite of that, I feel this is one area that keeps me clinging fiercely to the cross.<\/p>\n
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As I wrestle with the Lord on this, I wonder, why do I feel unqualified in this area? The answer to that becomes apparent. When I was a child, I had no consistent parenting. In my very early childhood years, my mother was present, loving and nurturing. Around age seven, she adopted some behaviors, which directly affected her ability to care for me. My parents, who had never been married split several years earlier and my father went on a quest to find himself so he wasn\u2019t around. I was often in the care of my grandmother or cousins who cared for me but didn\u2019t \u201cmother\u201d me. In my teens I did eventually move in with my father, but there was a gaping whole in my heart for MOMMY<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If I was not mothered, how can I effectively mother?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the enemy of your soul sees a crack in your finish, he attempts to seep his poison in that space. Just last week he tried to play on my weakness. While I feel that one of my greatest areas of weakness is parenting, I KNOW that I KNOW that the Lord has and continues to divinely teach me to parent. There is no question about that. But here he comes spewing his venom. As I\u2019m working on writing a parenting book, birthed out of that eight-week class I taught, this voice says, “Who are you to speak on this? You don’t know what you are doing. You mess up all the time”.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n When people see me with my little flock and they say things like “Motherhood is your ministry”<\/em> my flesh prickles like porcupine quills rising because the voice comes again saying, “Yeah but they didn’t see you roll eyes at your kid last night”<\/em>. But again, I know the truth. I KNOW that the Lord has supernaturally taught me to love, nurture and lead this little flock.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [bctt tweet=”TRUTH will always trump lies. And the truth says, where I am weak, I am strong.”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But he said to me, \u201cMy grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.\u201d Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ\u2019s power may rest on me. <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>That is why, for Christ\u2019s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not only am I made strong when I am weak, but God wants to use me, and He wants to use YOU right in your place of weakness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just like He used Moses. Doubting Moses. Unqualified Moses. Fearful Moses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moses who was fearful and ran from his staff when it turned into a snake; God told him to PICK UP that very thing and use it as a sign. That very same thing that Moses ran from was the same instrument that would hit a rock to bring water to nourish the people and would part the waters so they could cross on dry land.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [bctt tweet=”The very area you want to run in fear, is the very thing God will use to bring a miracle.”] And not just for you but for those whom you\u2019ve been called to lead. God wants to use your weakness. He wants to use what you\u2019ve got right in your hand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And along the journey, He will not leave nor forsake you. He\u2019ll be walking with you, talking with you and teaching you along the way. I can vividly recall having a hard mommy day about 8 years ago. I felt the children weren\u2019t listening and that they weren\u2019t doing the things I\u2019d been instructing them to do. The Holy Spirit stepped in and told me, \u201cGo to your room and open your bible.\u201d<\/em> I obeyed. He said, \u201cTurn to Isaiah 54:13.\u201d<\/em> I had NEVER read that verse before so I was curious as to where He was leading me. There have been very few instances in my entire Christian walk where He has lead me to a single, exact verse but here was one of those times and this is what it said,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c<\/em><\/strong>All your children shall be taught by the Lord, And great shall be the peace of your children.\u201d Isaiah 54:13<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What a word of confirmation!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n God used Moses\u2019 weakness. God used Gideon\u2019s weakness. And God wants to use mine too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I\u2019m learning to be more compassionate with myself. I\u2019m learning that my weaknesses aren\u2019t flaws I need to magnify but are opportunities for God\u2019s grace to be magnified. I\u2019m learning not to condemn myself when I do make a mistake in parenting. The Holy Spirit is circumcising my heart and uncovering the root of the disease. I\u2019ve tuned into the voice of my negative self-chatter and found its not even my voice but the voice of an imposter. It’s the voice of an overly critical, brutish aunt whose charge I was once under. Under God\u2019s skillful loving hand, I\u2019m learning to grant myself some grace, extend myself some love and nurture the me who is weak and vulnerable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Being weak and making mistakes is part of the human experience. I give myself permission to experience the full range of emotions and partake of the depth and breadth of my personal experiences, knowing that perfect is an illusion.\u00a0\u00a0 And parenting is by far not a perfect process. I\u2019m learning to see the beauty in the mess-ups when I take my eye off what I perceive to be my errors and put my eyes on Jesus. He is the best parent ever and loves me unconditionally. And though I have my parental weaknesses, in this He has an opportunity to rise up and show Himself mighty and strong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yup, in the parenting arena I may be weak but I\u2019m learning that that\u2019s okay. I\u2019m learning that God wants to use my weakness. I\u2019m learning that my weakness is the vehicle that makes me strong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In what area to do you feel unqualified, weak, or inadequate?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I count you COURAGEOUS for even stepping up to the plate and being willing to take your turn at bat. You may not always hit a homerun, but you put on your uniform, took the long walk to plate, lifted your bat, and let it fly. Your arms may be weak, but in that very instance, HIS power is made perfect in your weakness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I salute all the weak, inadequate, unqualified souls out there today. Let me leave you with this final thought\u2026.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c<\/em><\/strong>The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.\u201d ~Theodore Roosevelt<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As always, it is my prayer that you\u2019ve been Inspired To Live Fully<\/em>!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Happy to connect with these friends sharing the Good News:<\/p>\n Mommy Moments<\/a>, #LifeGivingLinkup<\/a>, Purposeful Faith<\/a>, Titus 2sdays<\/a>, Grace & Truth<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![Photo Credit<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\nOh and one last thing, Pastor Steven Furtick has a new book out called Unqualified<\/a>. In it, he highlights how God uses broken, inadequate people to do great things. Check it our by clicking on the title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unqualified Inadequate Incapable Weak Some days this is exactly how I feel. In many areas of my life I feel strong and capable. In some areas I feel I can leap tall building in a single bound. Marriage? CHECK Health? CHECK Ministry? CHECK Friendship? CHECK Parenting? WELL\u2026.. That\u2019s where it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1,14],"tags":[700,164,697,698,163,701,699,696,260,261],"class_list":["post-4469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-life","category-real-life","category-spiritual-life","tag-child-rearing","tag-children","tag-inadequate","tag-parent","tag-parenting","tag-raising-children","tag-shepherding","tag-unqualified","tag-weak","tag-weakness"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4472,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions\/4472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspiredtolivefully.com\/staging\/4119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/oldpathsjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/12\/God-Wants-Your-Weakness.jpg\"){kind=link}