Marriage is Hard, Parenting Together is Harder, Celebrate Well When You Can

Marriage is wonderful, and a lot of hard work. Then you add kids and you think you are a rockstar because you can keep another human alive. But then, you co-parent a teenager and pray every day that you are doing more good than harm. AND, you pray that if you manage to raise a kid, or two, that you can even recognize your spouse, (yourself?) somewhere in the middle, let alone at a kid’s high school graduation.

How do you apologize to a human that you love so much but had no experience to raise? Where do you find the words to speak to your spouse at a high school graduation when 18 years have gone by in a blink?

Here is what (very little) I know: learn from the failures, never stop holding on to the ones you love (even when you can’t even like them), and surround yourself with your people. You will know your people when you see them, they are 1) the ones with more faith in you than you ever have in yourself, 2) the ones who grab you by the chin, tilt your face up and say, “you’ve got this, dear one” and 3) the ones who love your husband and your sons when you have no idea how you can.

It takes a village to raise a woman into a wife and mother, a man into a husband and a father, and to raise a child to the man that God has created him to be. Here is to my village, whether you have passed through for a moment, a season or a lifetime. I am grateful for all of God’s gifts by the way of blessings, trials and exhales.