We used to have a white pine tree in our back yard that was nearly 125 feet tall. We had it felled last fall to clear the way for play and, someday, a great big fire pit. The minute my 5-year-old daughter cast her eyes on the enormous stump left there by that tree, she let out a little gasp, “Oh! It will be the perfect little table for a tea party!” She immediately scampered off to gather up her tea set and dolls and to prepare her pretend feast.

I will never forget the sight of her and her little sister sitting on our deck chairs, swinging their little legs back and forth, making the chairs wobble on the uneven ground around that tree stump. It is etched in my memory, but not because it was such a remarkable occurrence – it was sweet, but in an ordinary, every day sort of way. No, I will remember that moment forever because I almost missed it.

That week had been a particularly difficult one. I had been running on fumes for several days. Our 5-year-old demands a lot of my energy anyway, but for whatever reason, she had been especially demanding that week. Things had escalated and I was barely holding it together. To be honest, I was holding her at arms length. I didn’t want to engage with her anymore. It felt too hard.

So when she got excited about her tea party I felt a sensation of relief, knowing she would be occupied long enough for me to take a breath. Until the inevitable happened – she asked me to join them in their play. And I told her no. I felt completely justified in removing myself, physically and emotionally, from their game because, come on! A mama’s gotta have some space! But this was about more than that. Something else was going on inside of me. My heart was turned away from my child because I felt like I had already given all I had and there was nothing left. This was not a problem that was going to be solved by a few moments of quiet.

How had I gotten there? How did it get so bad that I was completely unwilling to let go of the struggle and enter into my child’s world? When I stopped and asked myself those questions, I realized I had been relying on my own strength to parent through those hard days rather than relying on the Spirit to do His sanctifying work in me. I was working hard to be a good mom, a mom that points her children to the gospel, but I was doing it in my flesh rather than through the Spirit. That kind of parenting looks really good for a while, and might even “work” by a certain standard. But even “good” or “effective” parenting, when it is done in our own strength, cannot produce the kind of sanctification that God desires for us and our children.

The apostle Paul writes about living out of this place of self-righteousness in his letter to the Phillippian church. He was a man who had it all together. By every account he was doing what he should do to be considered righteous before God. But it was only when God radically humbled him and he came face to face with the reality of the gospel that God could effectively use him to advance His kingdom.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being humbled. I don’t like feeling like my own strength is not enough. But I so desperately want to be effective in communicating the gospel to my children. Certainly God can use any means to bring about His purposes in the lives of those around us, and I am grateful that He can use even my failures to draw the hearts of my children closer to Him. But I don’t want to miss precious opportunities for meaningful connection and growth with my children because I have not allowed my heart to rest in Him. And somehow, when I am willing to humbly ask Him for the strength to do what feels impossible, to engage with my children even when I have nothing left, and to faithfully walk in obedience to Him, He gives all the strength I need.