This book has been rocking my world. I finished it today and as I was talking through it with Jimmy we decided to read through it together. Here is an excerpt:

"Most of us are painfully aware that we're not perfect parents. We're also deeply grieved that we don't have perfect kids. But the remedy to our mutual imperfections isn't more law, even if it seems to produce tidy or polite children. Christian children (and their parents) don't need to learn to be "nice". They need the death and resurrection and a Savior who has gone before them as a faithful high priest, who was a child himself, and who lived and died perfectly in their place. They need a Savior who extends the offer of complete forgiveness, total righteousness, and indissoluble adoption to all who believe. This is the message we all need. We need the gospel of grace and the grace of the gospel. Children can't use the law any more than we can, because they will respond to it the same way we do. They'll ignore it or bend it or obey it outwardly for selfish purposes, but this one thing is certain: they won't obey it from the heart, because they can't. That's why Jesus had to die."

This job of mothering is really important to me. I want to do it well and I want my hard work to produce my desired result: kids who love Jesus. Obviously that is a worthy goal, but I've been realizing lately that I've been trying to carry the weight of that responsibility; a weight that I was never meant to carry. This book has served to reinforce what God is already teaching me, that my job is simply to "love them, discipline them, and tell them about Jesus." That's it. Their souls belong to God and if they are his then he will save them despite my failures and not because of my successes. And that is a huge load off my back.

Give them Grace joy...