To My Children Who Will Be Parents

A father suffered unimaginable pain when he accidentally backed up the car and hit his 9 year old son, ending his life. The horror of anyone’s life being ended in such a way is unspeakable, but it is multiplied by the relationship of parent to child.

A parent is to protect and teach. To nurture and provide. To love and exemplify Heavenly Parents. To hurt a child is a significant breach of the great trust and responsibility placed in a parent.

And yet, in small and great ways, perhaps not as visible or immediate as this family’s experience, but real nonetheless, we, as parents, will fail many, many times.

We are imperfect, fallible, learning, growing human beings after all.

I have felt this father’s pain to some degree when I realize my weakness in parenting and my lack of understanding has negatively impacted my children (and, regrettably, will continue to do so).

With all my heart I wish it was not so, but it is.

We come to the earth to learn, to grow, to progress, to become like God. The process will include errors and blunders and failures. In our weakness we will not always act in the best ways for those we love. That is true for all of us, throughout our entire journey-parent and child.

This father was in agony for months, unable to escape the pain his mistake caused. Feeling at the end of his endurance, he cried for the pain to be removed from him. The words he felt marked the beginning of his healing process: ‘I could remove the pain, but then I would have to remove the love.’ While the pain was not taken from him, he was reminded of the bond of love that would not end (and that he would not trade), and he began to recognize the love of a Father and a Son that restores, mends, and reaches all pain and suffering.

He found healing from the only true and lasting source available.

Nothing I do can heal the pain and long-reaching effects from the parenting mistakes I make. But Jesus Christ can. The atonement can work retroactively to fill and make whole those broken parts of us-those caused by others and those caused by ourselves. Because He knew what mortality would be like, because He understands that even in our desire to do good and to love well we will continually fall short, His plan provides the power in Christ to make us whole.

I have hope and faith in Christ’s power and in His willingness to use that power for our benefit in all aspects of our lives. His grace is sufficient even in this.

Because of that hope, I can repent and try again. I can practice active compassion for myself in my process of learning, compassion for my parents’ mistakes, and compassion for my children. I can urge them to have the same compassion on themselves as they learn and try and progress throughout their lives and in their own parenting.

So I plead for Christ’s healing power for my children. For my mistakes and for theirs. For enabling power to change and grow and be better, for an increased capacity to understand Him and the words and acts to teach of Him to them. In the end, in process of time, I believe that great love-perfect love from Him and imperfect, but improving love from me-will wash away the pain and leave fullness, wholeness and indescribable joy.