Failure.

Failure. Last night was a complete failure. 

It’s the only word I can come up with that doesn’t involve four letters and a mouth washing. My three-going on thirty year old was not having bedtime. She wasn’t having it at 8:00, she wasn’t having it at 9:00 and she wasn’t having it at 9:15. By 9:15 this mama wasn’t having it anymore either. I could not live through one more, “I’m thirsty,” or “I want to watch TV.” After a battle, I’m talking— screaming, crying, stomping on the floor, door slamming, battle…I made her Dad deal with her.

Somehow, he managed to calm her down. Whilst he was calming her down, (thanks for that, Babe!) I thought to myself: How can I lead grown adults if I can’t even handle a three year old? How will a grown adult be inspired by my actions or my service if I can’t even convince my toddler that 8:00 p.m. is the right time to go to sleep? Worse, how will I talk to someone about composure and forgiveness when none of those words had been in my vocabulary for the last hour and a half? I had failed. Miserably. Both as a parent and as a person.
At around 10:30, after things settled down, I went back in to check on the little blue eyed monster. She peeked from the covers, still awake, and said, “I not crying anymore, Mama,” in the sweetest whisper. My heart broke into a million pieces. She wanted to me to know that she was calm now. All I could say was, “thank you, Mila.” I asked her if she wanted me to lie down beside her until she fell asleep, and she said, “Yea.” So I did. I told her I was sorry for yelling, and she just patted my cheek and told me she loved me.

I realized in that moment that maybe, just maybe, what equips me to lead is just the audacity to say I’m just as messed up as any of you. 

Maybe what equips me is the boldness to let my child see that I am human, and I make mistakes. Maybe what might inspire you is that I will always extend an apology to my children, because that’s the human thing to do.

I grew up in a household where nobody apologized…my parents didn’t apologize to each other—they may have, somewhere private, but we never heard apologies and they also most certainly never apologized to us. Although they’d like to think differently, we children were owed an apology a time or two—or twenty.  Don’t get me wrong, my parents were the best parents a girl could ask for, still yet, they weren’t always right. No parent is. Maybe my willingness to shout that will encourage you to do the same.

First, convince yourself you’re not perfect and your kids don’t need you to be perfect.

Children do not need an idol, they need a role model. There’s a difference.

Let me say that again, cos' I just took somebody to church. Your children DO NOT need an idol, they NEED a role model. They need to see your vulnerability, to see you fail, to see you apologize, and they HAVE to see you forgive yourself. Through those experiences, they will learn to recognize their own mistakes and to ask for forgiveness when they’ve hurt someone. Most importantly, they will learn that one failure doesn’t make them A failure. I don’t know about you, but there are adults in my life who haven’t learned that lesson.

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