It’s strange how we aim to be perfect parents. We want to give our kids a perfect life. When we inevitably fail, we feel guilty. What did we do wrong? We look at other families, and sometimes what we see makes us feel worse.
A few years ago, people were sharing a photo of a couple on their wedding day. It went viral. The bride and groom were sitting on upright chairs around the corner from each other, close enough to hear without seeing one another. Dressed in their wedding clothes, they prayed the Rosary before becoming man and wife. Did the parents of this soon-to-be-wed couple set a standard that all Christian parents yearned to reach? Did some people look at that photo and remember their own adult children who didn’t pray together on their wedding days and feel like they’d failed?
The question is: did the bride and groom have perfect parents who raised them perfectly? Were they about to embark on a perfect life together?
I don’t think so. The couple had a perfect moment and probably had others, but I’m sure they discovered that life together, although joyful, was often very messy.
I hoped to be a perfect mother, but I wasn’t. I wanted to provide my kids with a perfect life, but I didn’t.
How can we make our family lives perfect when so many circumstances are beyond our control?
A perfect life doesn’t include multiple miscarriages, a newborn death, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety, job loss, insomnia and other challenges that we wouldn’t have asked for.
And it’s not as if we are perfectly suited to deal with the ups and downs of life. All of us have character imperfections like pride, arrogance, selfishness, and sensitivity that come into play when life is difficult.
Of course, God has everything under control. Even though I’ve had times when I’ve been tempted to believe that my plans for my life are better than His, I know that’s not true. It’s the challenges that perfect us. We navigate them together as a family. Every trial is an opportunity to grow in love.
Life is about celebrating the good times, rejoicing when we succeed and forgiving each other when we don’t. Life is about joy and sorrow.
Occasionally, it’s about perfect moments, ones that we might capture with viral photos and share with the world.
But most of all, it’s about love and writing a million love stories that no one might see.
