In a perfect world, every child would be raised in a home where both parents were spiritually mature and emotionally stable. A home where it was safe for your voice to be heard and where you were patiently mentored into becoming who God designed you to be.

But as you have likely already discovered...we don't live in a perfect world.

As we grow up, become adults, develop relationships, and eventually begin our own families...we are often confronted with situations that expose our inability to (1) navigate our emotions in a healthy way or (2) cultivate the intimacy that we truly desire. And the ways in which we respond to these situations are a direct result of how we were parented.

The reality is that most of us are really just old children desperately seeking approval in the present...from our parents in the past. No matter how long and hard we look, it won't be found anywhere else but in our union with God.

So...the process of what we call self-parenting is to partner with God to experience the nurturing, compassionate love that we may not have received during our own childhoods. At its core, self-parenting involves healing from the wounds of our past to show up more completely in the present as the man or woman that God intended.

To be perfectly honest, this is not an easy journey, but it doesn't add to our pain from the past...it simply reveals what has been there all along...and brings our wounded hearts to our dear Father to be re-parented with love, compassion, and wisdom.