Fear of Failure

There is a very real fear that I struggle with in being a single mom.  I fear that I will fail.  I fear that although I do all I think is right for my son, that this divorce and this one-sided parenting without a constant dual influence will ultimately cause pain and failure to his bright future.  I fear he will end up a statistic of the "Fatherless Home Syndrome".  Will he be labeled a failure if I fail in doing the best I can?  Is the best I can, good enough?  I know where that fear comes from and I know it is not of the Lord.

Society instills that fear in us as single parents.  Our kids are going to struggle more and our kids are going to feel an emptiness because of the lack of a solid relationship with parent #2.  Society also pushes the single parent to feel proud of doing it all alone.  That we can be proud that we are doing it without another parent in the picture.  People praise a single parent who has worked so hard to provide a good life for his/her children.  They esteem such a hard worker, but not too hard of a worker.  Work too hard and you are failing your kids or don't work enough and you again are failing.  People do not praise failure.  It's a lose-lose feeling that we need to come to terms with almost daily.  

I recently even saw a Facebook page that was entitled, "Proud Single Moms".  That title really had me pondering on the question, "Am I a proud single mom?"  Am I proud that I get up day after day and complete the work of two and even though exhausted, I continue to press forward as my promise to be the best I can be for my son?  Yes.  In that I am proud...of myself.  However, am I proud to be divorced and that my entire future fell before me in pieces that I was left to pick up while juggling motherhood?  No.  Absolutely not.  I am not proud to be a single mother, but I rejoice in the single mother God is molding me to be.  He is teaching me things everyday about myself and how to overcome the struggles that go along with single-motherhood.

For this, I know that fear of failure has no hold over me.  It is something I consistently have to remind myself.  If we are truly leaning to God in all circumstances, even the hard ones, then we can rest without fear of failure.  Let our homes be of such that our children know their heavenly Father and that they watch our examples of how to live with Him first.  God allows us all to fail but never refers to us as "failures".  I choose to look at my son as a work in progress, just like his mom and together we can rise above the fear of failing.