I saw a video yesterday that warmed my heart. A little girl smashes her fingers in a door. Her mama instructs her to take a deep breath. She asks her a few questions and when the little girl remembers she smashed her fingers, she puckers up to cry again. Her mother never once tells her not to cry. She acknowledges her daughter’s pain and comforts her in a way that gives the little girl power. Not only power, but the opportunity to participate in love. In loving herself. In loving her mom. All without a meltdown or worse…a tired and frustrated mom yelling at her child to quit crying.

I remember when my daughters were little ones. I treated them so differently. Because, I was barely twenty-one when the first one was born. I knew about as much about parenting as I know about astrophysics. When she fell down, she was instructed to get up and brush it off. Consequently, it made her tough. She is a rock and can do all the tough stuff. The downside of that is, we expect her to be the rock and do all the tough stuff. I sometimes wish I would have held her and rocked her when she hurt instead of putting such expectations on her. She is an excellent mother to her girls. I can see my parenting style in her. We live what we learn.

I was in a far different place when Daughter #2 came into the world. Her daddy was already an established physician in the small mountain community we lived in. I was thirty-six, nearly thirty-seven when she was born. We had a level of affluence I couldn’t have even imagined when my first daughter was young. There were a lot of things going on in my life when she was little and I mothered her entirely differently. I knew this was my last baby and I wanted to soak every ounce out of the experience. That wasn’t always in my daughter’s best interest. Still, she grew up with a passionate intensity. She was much more in tune with her emotions and shared them at will. Which wasn’t always in MY best interests.

You cannot compare one child to another, even when they are raised in the same family. They each have their own personalities. But the one thing I think I really got right was teaching my children to love. To have great empathy. To hold others in high regard. To have compassion. To plant peace wherever they go. I love that about them. They may do it in different ways, but they have great hearts….and I am so, so proud.

This sweet little one captured my heart. She will always know she is loved, and she is worthy.

❤️

“Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.”

Psalms 127:3 NIV