faith
Grace-Based Parenting: Trusting God with What We Can’t Control
BY ASHLEIGH RICH PHOTO BY MAGNIFIC.COM
R ecently, we had a breakthrough in our house with our picky eater. After months of refusing anything but PB&J and Kraft mac and cheese, she suddenly became open to trying new foods. The funny thing is, I don’t know why. We’ve been trying some different strategies to get her comfortable with different foods, but they didn’t seem to be making much progress. So, either our strategies were working better than we thought or she just grew out of her super picky phase. That’s one of the tricky things about parenting. No matter what age or stage of parenting you are in, there is so much grace involved. Grace is just a fancy word for getting what you don’t deserve. Grace means that our outcomes are not always decided by our actions. As Ecclesiastes 9:11 (NIV) says, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” The tricky part about grace is that there are two sides to it. Sometimes it’s a good thing; We get good outcomes we don’t deserve, and that’s a gift from God. Sometimes it’s a hard thing—we don’t get a good outcome we might think we deserve, and we should accept that from God too, trusting that He knows what’s best for us and is working all things for our good (and our kids’ good).
Regardless, it’s worth remembering that we are not the ones in control. God’s grace always plays a role. So what does that mean for us as parents? Here are a few of my personal takeaways. We do our best and trust God with the rest. While we should work diligently as parents, we must remember that God is always at work in our children’s lives. We aren’t lazy or negligent, leaving our children’s futures up to chance. But we recognize that we aren’t in total control. We control what we can, we make the best choices we can, and we trust that God is at work in all things. We pray both for ourselves and our kids, asking for grace for all of us. We don’t beat ourselves up. Parent guilt is real—there’s always something else we could have tried or something we messed up. That doesn’t mean we’ve ruined our children. God can redeem the worst mistakes. There’s nothing we can do to our kids that God cannot redeem and make right. Remember: We’re imperfect humans raising imperfect humans, with a perfect God working alongside us. God is ultimately the one writing the story. We show grace to our children. If we want our children to appreciate the gift of God’s grace, we should be the first to
demonstrate it to them. We should give them good things they don’t deserve occasionally. Use it as a teaching moment to explain to them how God works in our lives. You can’t have all grace and no justice in your house (that’s just called spoiling your children), but a house with no grace is just as bad. That breeds legalism. So show your kids a little grace now and then. Let them experience grace in small ways so they can remember to look for it in larger ways as they grow. We live humble lives. There are so many things that we, as parents, can’t take credit for. If we have kids who are naturally good sleepers, brave eaters, good friends, self-disciplined, smart, etc., those qualities are gifts of grace to them (and to us). They’re things to be grateful for, but not reasons to pat ourselves on the back. So much of who our children are and how they grow is simply God’s grace at work. Rather than giving out advice, we should be thanking the Father who made them the way they are. Whatever struggle you have in your house in this season, give yourself some grace and trust that God’s grace is at work too. Whether you figure out something that works to help you and your child through a particular challenge or they just “grow out of it,” God is with you every step of the way and His grace is enough for you both.
22 SEPTEMBER 2026 | BRPARENTS.COM
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