A few years ago, I was awake in the wee hours of the night struggling with sadness, fear, and guilt about my family. After a divorce and rearing three children on my own, I was challenged with extreme prodigal behavior, financial distress, and other woes associated with single parenthood. I was seeing my children as fatherless and myself as personally responsible for them.
I was trying to pray and focus on claiming God’s reality to overcome the turmoil I was feeling. Yet, over and over again unhappy thoughts kept surfacing. I tried comforting myself by remembering a Bible verse, “Thy Maker is thine husband” (Isa. 54:5). Then, an angel thought came to me: “Yes, my children have a single Parent, and this is a good thing!”
I felt a glow in my heart. Single parenthood was something to celebrate. I saw that my children’s sole Parent, and my Parent, was our Father-Mother God. I did not have to worry about the mortal expectations for the children of a single mom. I did not have to see rebellion, anger, poor choices, and failure being attached to my children, because their mortal parentage and history ultimately has no cause or reality. I saw my children as the spitting image of their Father-Mother God.
