God formed us and knows what we need

While having dinner with a friend recently, the topic of our “strong-willed” daughters came up. We both have constant battles with our young daughters (mine is six) wanting to assert themselves, do everything their way, and boss others around. She said that one of her friends told her something that had helped her gain a new perspective. Her friend said that God gives us the tools when we are born that we will need later in life. As Psalm 139 says, all of our days are ordained for us. God knows what trials and struggles we will face long before we do. We were fearfully and wonderfully made. He molds us in the womb to become His strong warriors.   2 Peter 1:3 states, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness though our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” In Jeremiah 1:5 we learn that God knew us in the womb and set us apart.

Knowing this has helped me understand my daughter better. I know it is not my job to change her, but to refine her. Someday she may need that strong will of hers to get her out of a tough situation. She may become a great leader who needs to assert herself. I want my daughter to be able to stand up against peer pressure and things she knows are wrong.

Something else came to me from this conversation. Recently, I was helping my son set up his tent in the living room. I started to think of the many times in my life I had set up a tent with little to no help. I had a whole stream of consciousness moment which showed me all the times in my life when I followed my dad around learning how to build and repair things—which led to remembering the summer I made him teach me how to throw a ball. Every day for an entire summer, I made him go in the front yard with me after dinner because I wanted to be able to play baseball with my brother and not softball like a girl. I was definitely a tomboy when I was younger. I took wood shop instead of home-economics in junior high.  I loved fishing and camping. In college I worked summers and Christmas breaks at a home improvement warehouse. I could name all the tools and could take care of simple repairs.

Why was this important? Many girls are tomboys when they are younger and love following their daddies around. I believe God was preparing me for the life I would have. He knew that my husband would not be able to teach our son how to throw a ball. I have been the one to go out in the yard and throw every kind of ball imaginable to our very eager son. My husband does what he can, but his ALS prevents him from gripping the ball and scooping it up from the ground. This past summer my son was on a player-pitch baseball team. He was the youngest and the smallest on the team. His coach used to work with my husband and knows about his diagnosis. During the last inning of his last game, the coach put my son in to pitch. I can’t describe the feeling I had as my husband watched on and the whole (small) crowd cheered for him. His throws barely made it across the plate, but he did it with such enthusiasm, it was hard not to cheer.

It’s hard to think of life without my husband around—and sometimes even harder to imagine a life in which he is around, but incapable of doing the things he so desperately wants to do—but it is comforting to know God has a plan to help us get through this. We may not know what the plan is yet, but I know that His planning and His timing are perfect. He can see the whole picture, while we only see what is right in front of us.

God, I ask that you use me as your instrument. Teach me patience and to see things through your perfect eyes. Thank you for giving me what I need and help me refine the traits in my children that they need to survive and flourish.