Culpabilidad. La mención de esta palabra puede generar una gran cantidad de emociones incluso en el alma más pura.
Guilt, by definition, means “feelings of deserving blame especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy.”
I would dare say, there isn’t a parent alive today who hasn’t felt a sense of inadequacy at some point in their parenting journey. Afterall, there is only one perfect Father, meaning we all miss the mark at some point in parenting.
It is my firm belief that the enemy’s number one weapon against parents is guilt. The Psalmist tells us that children are a GIFT from the Lord, they are a REWARD from Him. He also tells us that we are BLESSED when our quiver is full.
Dado que los hijos son una bendición, un regalo, una recompensa, es fácil entender por qué el enemigo los convierte en su objetivo. Lo último que él desea es que nos sintamos recompensados y bendecidos. Más bien, su deseo es vernos frustrados, enfadados, ansiosos, nerviosos, dudando de cada decisión que tomamos, cansados, estresados, agotados y desgastados. Por desgracia, para muchos padres, su deseo se está cumpliendo.
Yo fui ese tipo de madre durante los primeros diez años de mi trayectoria como madre. Mi esposo y yo nos conocimos un poco tarde, por lo que tuve mi primer hijo a los 30 años. ¡Estábamos encantados!
We were both blessed with dear and Godly mothers… different as night and day, but each one loved their families and their Savior with fierce passion.
Cuando mi primer hijo vino al mundo, apareció junto con él un tipo de sentimiento de culpa que nunca antes había experimentado.
“Do I work too much?”
“Did I feed him the right thing?”
“Does he get enough sleep?”
“Does he sleep too much?”
“Should I have let him watch that show?”
“Should I let him watch TV at all?”
Y así sucesivamente, hasta que me encontré en un círculo vicioso.
Enter the grandmothers… as Godly and precious as they were, the enemy took their words and their Godly counsel and twisted it in my mind. I truly believed for the next ten years, and with the birth of three more precious babies, that I would do nothing but royally mess up my children.
Then something happened… I experienced a guilt infused situation that put me on my face before God. I cried out to Him and said these exact words, “I can’t do it! I can’t raise Godly, healthy, happy, well-rounded, well-behaved children. Why you chose me to be their mother, I will never know. I. Cannot. Do. It.”
His response? “Good, now we can get somewhere. I never asked you to parent under ‘the law’ of guilt and shame. I’ve called you to parent in grace. When you parent in grace, you will do the best you can, and you will TRUST me to do what you can’t.”
Seems so simple, doesn’t it?
I had taken His gift, His reward, His blessing and made it something it was never supposed to be…almost like an idol (That’s a blog for another day).
When I got up from that personal prayer meeting, I was a new person. I began to parent in grace - meaning I did what I thought was best, without second guessing my every move, and then I trusted God to do His part. And even if I made mistakes
(of which I made about a million and two), I knew He was faithful and gracious enough to fix them for me. I began to actually enjoy parenting!
Hoy en día, tengo cuatro hijos que desempeñan funciones vocacionales o voluntarias en sus iglesias y, lo que es más importante, todos ellos aman y siguen a Jesús.
I include this to ASSURE you, if you lean into God’s grace, give yourself grace as a mother or a father, you will do a better job of parenting the children God has blessed you with AND the parenting journey will be much more enjoyable.
Parents, please don’t let guilt rob you of the JOY God intended when He gifted us, blessed us, and rewarded us with children.
Cary and Leann Rosenbaum have been married for 30 years. Cary is the lead pastor at Bethel Assembly of God in Jacksonville, AR. They were kid’s pastors for ten years and have served as lead pastors for 20 years. Leann has been a public-school teacher and now, together with Cary, leads a ministry in 13 public schools in central AR teaching healthy relationships to over 3000 students each school year.
Sus cuatro hijos también participan muy activamente en el ministerio, y se espera que su primer nieto nazca en mayo de 2026.