It’s an Intertwined confidence that I feel. I’m otherwise comfortably humble, self conscious, and I enjoy a sense of invisibility.

So I find my strong belief in my own lovability strange. Where did it come from? How was it built so sturdy and long term? What is the correlation between confidence and humility?

More specifically now, the question that haunts me is:

What is my role in helping my daughters build such a strong foundation?

I love them both dearly. Nothing can change my commitment and delight in them. Though these days, these months of pandemic, getting on each other’s nerves, I feel that the message of unconditional love gets lost in between the correcting, the nagging, the pleading. The thunder and lightning in my eyes.

I sit here, aware of how often I ignore God during times of peace and plenty. Yet as I lay in bed and I remember Him, it is never with dread or guilt. He, the God in my head, is always patient, and He delights in me. Even when I’m a sheep.

My parents didn’t hold back their correcting. And I take comfort in that. I never saw their disciplining as a lack of love but a proof of it.

I don’t feel very jolly about my parenting style these days. I fret. I struggle. I get annoyed and I pull back to refocus. But in all honesty, all this struggle does not prove a lack of love, but an abundance of it. It is painful. For me as a parent to find the balance daily. But I hope and pray that the message of unconditional love, first from us, and then as a transposition from God to my girls, it becomes a personal relationship between each of my girls and God, Independent from me.
God rebukes. God forgives. God sacrifices. God loves in a perfect way. If I keep that in mind, and I follow Him, then we’ll all be alright.