Inadequacy

Today was another "A-Ha" moment!

Parenting has many challenges and I have mine, but overall, it's really been easy. Yes, I do deal with attitudes, sick children, messiness, and all that other stuff, but it doesn't seem "hard" like it seems for other people.

One of the things I do know that I did, though, it really wasn't me rather God, was to realize I couldn't do this parenting thing at all and really camped on God's doorstep to really intercede daily and throughout the day, each and every day. There were many days early on when Henry left that parenting was soooo hard. To manage everything was just too much and serious thoughts of being so inadequate crossed my mind often, and petitioning God was incessant.

Then, somewhere along the way, I kept realizing that God was stepping in. Think it was back in Feb or Mar'09 when it dawned on me that though my marriage was over, no longer having a husband, and that I was physically alone, true aloneness was a farce because God was there all the time. He was my husband, as well as a father to my kids.

He poured His Spirit into my children. In 2008, my little girl, then 7, asked Jesus to be her Savior. Less than a year later, at the beginning of 2009, my little boy, then 5, asked Jesus to be his Savior. Somehow, my son got saved, there arose a greater spiritual wholeness in our family.

We are taught as Americans, and also in my culture, to be very indepedent, to need no one. But, the sad fact is, that's a complete lie from the enemy that we've bought into. God wants us to be dependent on Him, to need Him completely. He doesn't want us to split off from the vine, which is our source for life. How ridiculous to think that we can live apart from the vine!

As I scan the other areas of my life -- finances, fitness, men, relationships, health, I'm really not successful in those areas because of my independence from God. Tonight is a time for me to spend in repentence before God for not needing Him in those areas, thinking I could do it all on my own.

When I look back at my career as an engineer, it was fairly successful, but it was because early on, the realization that I really wasn't that good and really needed God's help dominated. It's pretty amazing that my career lasted as long as it did and all of it would be attributed to God placing me at the right place at the right time.

When one is dependent upon God, it doesn't mean you kick back and do nothing, rather, when you work, you're relying on God rather than your own self.