You aren’t responsible for the miracle. You’re responsible to bring your loaves and fishes.

This is from a mom I know. After having two of their own, they adopted five others. While her husband is active duty military. They all just moved to their next military assignment (and left me behind) and have had to once again (as military life always requires) adjust everything about their lives.

This mom posted this on her Facebook about this newest season of their lives. It is all so true—for you too.

Some thoughts on parenting and shepherding our kids through this season.

Our kids range in age from 18-4. Their struggles, their lessons being learned, their physical, emotional, and support needs are drastically different, their seasons of life are drastically different. We’re planning a wedding, navigating college classes, dealing with childhood trauma, playing academic catch-up over the summer, and preparing for all 5 littles to be in school or preschool next year. We are all over the place.

But God.

He is faithful and has been so so good to us. Here’s what I’m learning.

Struggle and failure are not the same.

Success and ease aren’t the same.

You don’t graduate to fancy, you graduate to faithful.

Keep going.
Love the kids in front of you.
Be gentle with their mother.
You aren’t responsible for the miracle. You’re responsible to bring your loaves and fishes.

You know what your loaves and fishes are because you shame yourself too often for not providing more structure;

for not saying no to the pop;

for missing yet another family devotion time;

for allowing too much screen time;

for being short tempered over nothing;

for having so little patience to enjoy the nonessential things while you are in the midst of experiencing them;

for being grumbly more than grateful.

Those loaves and fishes are enough.

From my view, I am grateful for your loaves and fishes. To you they don’t feel like enough. Our scarcity-driven world continually beats that lie into us. I am saying you are enough. I see all of the attempts you are making to raise your teens to love God and to love others and to graduate high school.

I also see how your teens look at you. It is not the look of “you are not enough.” It is the look that “I know I can count on you.” And even, “I’m desperate to count on you because everything in my teen world is crazy and I don’t know who I can count on.” (I also see the eyerolls but there is always something deeper behind the eyerolls.)

Your loaves and fishes are enough.

They are all that Jesus needs to create a great miracle.

And your teen is a great miracle.

Read the book

A small book about being the people that hurting people need.

“This is the book that I wish I had had for people in my life that have suffered and needed me to be that compassionate friend. This is the book that I wish others in my life had read before they dismissed my pain, or compared it to theirs, or stumbled horribly through trying to lessen my pain because it was actually really about THEM not feeling comfortable with it.”

Order here: https://bravester.com/new-book-from-bravester/