I read this thing a few days ago from a mom talking about carrying the emotional weight of her teenager’s sadness. The daughter was angry, hurt, so the mom just carried all the weight quietly until the girl was ready to pick some of it back up. And I thought—that’s it. That’s what good parents do. That’s what God does.
We think we have to fix everything for our kids, absorb all their pain, make sure they never hurt. But that’s not what loving looks like. Loving is carrying what they can’t carry yet, and being patient until they’re ready to be responsible for their own stuff again.
You know, we created people in God’s image—male and female. And we gave them responsibility together. Stewardship. Partnership. Not domination, not superiority, but actual partnership in taking care of this world. And somewhere along the way, we twisted that into all these competing ideas about who’s better, who should lead, who should step back. We made it either/or when God made it both/and.
Look at the creation story. God looked at what was made and said it was supremely good. Male and female together. Not one as an afterthought. Not one diminished. Both made in God’s image. Both given the same assignment to tend and care for the earth. Both carriers of God’s image in this world.
When I think about good parenting, when I think about what God does with us, it’s this: God feels everything we feel. And God’s willing to carry the weight until we’re ready. That’s stewardship. That’s love. That’s what it means to be made in God’s image and to use that image the way God intends.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope