PARENTING CAN BE REALLY FUN. But many parents, including myself, have experienced times when the challenges of caring for young children have outweighed the joys. As a mother of three little ones, I've faced frustration when things weren't going the way I wanted. But I've found that prayer helps me tap into a reliable, spiritual source of joy that doesn't depend on the actions or attitudes of my kids.

Our family went through a rough period after our second daughter was born. Although she was a delightful baby, my recovery after the birth was slow, making it difficult to manage the responsibilities of caring for two young children at once. The happiness I was trying to hold on to felt threatened by selfdoubt and fatigue. Our two little girls often cried at the same time (the older one hadn't turned two yet), and I felt overwhelmed. But whenever I took the kids out in public, parents of grown children would smile and wistfully remark, "I hope you're enjoying every moment of this special time. Before you know it, they're grown and gone!" These comments made me realize that I definitely was not "enjoying every moment" with the girls. In fact, I wasn't feeling much joy at all.

One day, looking for solace in prayer, I came across this passage in Science and Health: "Earth has little light or joy for mortals before Life is spiritually learned" (p. 548.). I appreciated how frank that statement was. What did it mean to learn life spiritually?

A few basic ideas came to my thought. The first was that Spirit is God. So to learn life spiritually, I needed to learn more about God. Based on what I knew from the Bible, I understood that God, not man or woman, was the Creator of mankind. And this loving, infinite God maintained His creation. So it must follow that the source of my joy was God, not my kids.

I realized I could wake up each morning with joy. And since this expression of joy was completely natural and God-derived, I didn't need to wait for it to come to me through humanly perfect circumstances. I could feel a change brewing in my thinking.

Soon, I began to expect a higher standard for the quality of our home life, and made a point to challenge the idea that the next year or so of my life was going to be dismal and difficult. This spiritual standard opened my thought to the possibilities of sustained harmony in each day. When the girls cried at the same time, it no longer seemed like a confirmation that I wasn't cut out for mothering. Instead, these crying spells were opportunities to see that God's love could comfort and satisfy both my children.

With this prayerful approach, I also developed my problem-solving skills. For instance, when the baby needed to nurse and her sister wanted lunch, I put the older one in her highchair with a peeled apple. She'd happily munch on the apple for about 20 minutes, just enough time for the baby to finish nursing. The first time I tried this, five minutes into the snack, both children smiled happily at me at the same time. In that moment, I understood what people meant when they became nostalgic over the "early years" . . . this was a joy! Self-doubt and fatigue melted away.

As our girls have grown and a little brother has come into their lives, I've felt increasingly confident and joyful all around in my parenting role. I've found it's important to recognize that neither parents nor their children are responsible for maintaining each other's joy. Knowing this takes away the intensity or pressure that can characterize these relationships. Time spent with one's children is precious, but not because the kids are adorable when they're young and time together quickly flies by. It's always precious because of constant opportunities to learn more about God, or Life, from each other.

Since learning these lessons, a Bible verse from the Old Testament has become a favorite of mine: "He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children" (Ps. 113:9). For a while, it felt as if my sense of life and joy was "barren." But my prayers helped me see that joyful parenting, at any stage, is not the short-lived outcome of positive thinking. Joyful parenting is a sustainable result of spiritual clarity, and of learning life spiritually. This approach makes for lighter hearts and happier homes. icss