~week two~day 2~

Parenthood is a very romantic thought when you’re young.  Being a mama or daddy, for most, sounds like a call to love.  You find the one you love.  You eventually bring little people into the world because of your love.  It all makes a lot of sense in light of love.

But as the weeks and months and years pass, you come to find that parenting is as much about bravery as it is about love.  No one tells you in advance about the fear you will put aside when you ride in the ambulance to get your peanut’s finger sewed back on.  No one gives you a shower card telling you to be brave and wise when the thermometer hits 103 or 104 during the night.  And, the lonely year your sweet offspring spent looking for friends to hang with on the playground – – you didn’t see that coming, but your love made you brave.

I must not (will not) leave out the bravery of childbirth.  Frankly, no one tells you about the reality of childbirth before you experience it.  I think it’s mainly because they know there are no words to describe the persistent traumatizing pain.  But I also think it’s because they don’t want to tattoo fear into your joyful anticipation.  Childbirth takes bravery.

Fear and retreat sound like good options sometimes.  But the love in you tells you that you can be brave so that your kids will also be brave.  You do things against your grain like letting them fall sometimes.  You don’t always swoop them up when their heart is hurt, but let them grow under your wings.  Parenting takes putting aside fear and putting on bravery.  It all makes a whole lot of sense in light of love.