God comforted my momma heart last week. It was such a monumental event that if He were to take me home tomorrow, I feel certain He would take care of my kids.

My young adult daughter came to me several months ago inquiring about our ability to assist her with finding a living situation for graduate school. She knew finding housing within her fixed income limits was going to be nearly impossible in an urban locale.

We had nothing to offer her. We could not be the answer to her problems.

But I did (bravely) speak words of life (though I am not sure she received them as such on first hearing).

God is going to provide for you, I said. Just start walking it out and watch Him take care of you.

(Then I prayed like crazy that He would take care of her!)

So she started to walk it out and search for a place to live. She networked, looked at some places, drove around to get a feel for different areas of town and searched for roommates. The girl can work.

In the end, she accepted a less than ideal situation, but it was safe and it was with friends. I was proud of her willingness and determination to do what she needed to do to get where she wanted to go.

And then God broke through.

When someone found out about her less than ideal situation, they offered her a better one — a perfect one. Turns out, they had been thinking of offering it to her but had been afraid to ask until they knew for sure they had a better option.

I helped her move in last week and when I saw her new living space, I burst into tears of joy. (It wasn’t pretty.) I could not have planned or provided what God ended up giving her. He provided far more than I could have asked for or imagined. I keep telling my husband, “I am so comforted!”

So here’s the message for all us moms on this Mother’s Day: It’s okay to not always be the answer to our children’s problems. To set ourselves up to be their answer to everything makes us a god instead of teaching them to seek God as their provider. I shudder to think of the ways we interfere with our children understanding that God will provide for them apart from us.

Our children need to develop their own faith stories, stories about the time when God came through for them. Those stories can’t happen if we are the ones always taking care of them. So even if we can provide for them, perhaps we shouldn’t at times, so God can develop their faith.

I am so comforted by how God has taken care of my daughter. It has increased my faith too!

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

I have been praying their entire lives that they grow into men and women that love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. I think last week was His kindness toward me, to give me a glimpse of His quality care of them.

So I will continue on. I will continue to lean the imperfect parts of my life into His perfect sovereignty. I will continue to pray in earnest and trust that when I can’t take direct care of them, God will use the opportunity to step in so my children can transfer their faith from me to Him.

My daughter now has a story to tell about how God provided for her in miraculous ways. She now knows a little bit more that she will be okay even when her parents can’t do anything except speak words of faith and pray.

Let’s not stand in God’s way by insisting that we be the answer to all of our children’s problems.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Picture Explanation: What beauty grows in my very own yard! But not as beautiful as what God is growing within the people who have grown up here. I believe more than ever that He has them in the palm of His hand and He is hearing and answering my prayers for them. He loves them more than I do, and when I invite Him to infiltrate our family, He shows up in miraculous ways. Have hope, moms!

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