Dear Parents
As a team we are all so aware of the challenges all parents are facing right now. We know that there is a broad mix of things coming together – home-schooling, normal work concerns, managing work from home, everyday family concerns, keeping the house together, money worries, dealing with our own frustrations, guilt, disappointment, tiredness. And more… As parents we carry the weight of responsibility for our children and we are prone to comparison and feelings of failure. Some days go well, or better than expected. Other days can feel like they are nothing short of disastrous.
We know that there are no silver bullets in all this. At root I guess most of us are simply missing others to chat to, to have a coffee with, to process our concerns, to hear encouragements from. We miss other’s faces – their smile, their empathy, their love. Dads are missing other dads, and mums are missing mums, and the pleasures of living life with others, alongside others, have been taken away.
For some of us things may be even harder. We might be wondering if we are depressed at the moment, not just flat. We may not be sleeping very well. We may not be taking good care of ourselves. We might feel we have slipped into some bad habits. Maybe our motivation has taken a hit. We flit between anger and sadness. We may be carrying additional weight and responsibility – for a particular child, or parent, or work situation – that in normal times we’d be ok with, but right now seems like it’s overwhelming. Anxiety about the future may be completely debilitating right now.
If any of this relates to you, then please know that we are praying for you as a team. Please know that we want to connect, talk, listen.
Reaching out to and with others is not easy but over the next few weeks, while also encouraging the whole church to think ‘parents’, we want to specifically reach out to you as parents and to help you reach out to others going through the same stuff. Together we can support and encourage one another.
With all this in mind, and without any sense of wanting to add further to your own sense of obligation, Tory and I would like to invite any of you who’d appreciate it, to join us for a parent’s prayer time next Thursday (11th February) at 8pm. The idea is simply to offer a time of prayer, to help us to bring our children to God together with a few others, and be reminded that God is with us in it all…
Sign up here if you want to come along.
As a team, we’d also like to encourage you to get in touch and let us know what we can pray for specifically for you as a family. You can email or message any of us at any time. Our emails are at the bottom of the page.
I was talking with a friend, a father of 4 about it all. Acknowledging that ‘a parent is only ever as happy as their least happy child’, he added that right now, in this stage of lockdown, our own happiness as parents is not only linked to our children. It is being buffeted by many things. Our own happiness, contentment, our sense of confidence, is taking a hit irrespective of our children. We are struggling as people, not only as parents.
And so, lastly, if you are able, I’d like to encourage you to find another parent to connect with, listen to and pray together with, specifically in their role as a parent – as a mum or a dad – right now. I am sure that you’ll be surprised by just how powerful this could be for you both.
However, you respond, my prayer is that in these testing times you may know the presence of our heavenly Father encouraging and supporting you as you care for your own children and family every single day.
Richard
- Sign up here for Tory and Richard’s Prayer Time
- Email the team if you’d like us to pray for you – Helping us pray for you and with you.
