It is interesting that we spend our children’s lives wishing health and happiness for them. Raising children is basically trying to teach them what to avoid and hoping they don’t mess up when they are a teenager or adult. Then we loose them on the world, watching to see if they will “succeed” or not.

We forget that the way all of us have learned our greatest lessons has been through our failures. I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach our children the way to go, but we should also not expect that their lives will be pain-free and perfect. In fact, maybe we should wish for them some pain and difficulty and be thankful for their God-given opportunities to grow, at the same time grieving with them their pain and loss.

Development is a lifelong process and each of us, big or little, has our difficulties coming. Isn’t that interesting – that to be in pain is to be human? That must be the way God chooses to grow and form us.