Things both change and stay the same.

Our eldest celebrated her birthday recently, and as with most such events, the inevitable journey down memory lane filled many of my thoughts for several days. Looking back on those early stages of her life all the way to now, 11 years later, so much, yet also so little has changed. While our baby girl has long since swapped her delightfully chubby baby thighs and bald head for long lean limbs, and an equally lengthy head of blond hair, her playful blue eyes shine across the dinner table today just as they did from inside a highchair, a decade ago. In place of the hours she once would spend on our laps being read stacks and stacks of storybooks filling her nursery, now most days she can be found holed up in her room devouring the latest science fiction find from the library. No more rocking chair, or mama singing nursery rhymes, yet still a love of fantasy and books has remained a constant throughout her life. As with all blooming creatures, with growth comes change, but the roots remain.

In a similar way, we, as parents have gone through so much change over the course of our daughter’s life, and still our inexperience to navigate all the things at each one of her stages of maturity has never wavered. We were wide-eyed, hopeful and clueless 20-somethings when she came along and today, we may be more weary-eyed than wide, but still hopeful and as clueless as ever. While there is wisdom earned from experience, there is a growing bewilderment from the daily revelation of how very little we actually know.

The Journey Is Everlasting

I have thought about this often over the 11 years since becoming a parent, but we never really graduate from the “first time parent” status granted us upon arrival of that first tiny human swaddled in pink or blue. I don't care how many kids you eventually have. You will always be a first time parent with your oldest. All of the firsts, all of the unknowns, all of the blind optimism, all the mistakes...none of the experience. Over the years as a “new” parent I have devoured every baby whisperer, best parent on the block, grace-based parenting type of book I could find time for. I have attended conferences and classes on everything from character development to the dreaded topic of puberty. Without a doubt, practical nuggets have been gleaned, but no book, class or weekend retreat has ever fully prepared me for the frontlines of parenting. Try as I might to be uber-prepared, equipped for every battle of wills, or attitudes, the fact remains, I perpetually feel caught off-guard, trying to find my way through a dark cave without so much as a headlamp or a protein bar.

Culturally, we expect to have answers, to figure this parenting gig out, and then write a blog about it. We expect it of ourselves and of other parents (subsequently feeling judged or doling out some of our own judgments when expectations aren't met). Well, 11 years and three kids later, I have uncovered a small handful of answers, but the only thing about parenting I seem to have figured out is, I am constantly trying to figure it out.

From diaper rash and sleep schedules, to preschool choices and pediatricians, to playground politics, and hormones, I spend much of my time back in that cave, feeling my way along rough rocks with blind faith and prayers for light. My hunch is whether we would like to admit it or not, there are a lot of us first-time parent cave-dwellers. And I can’t help but think that is how God intends it for now. In our weakness, He becomes strong. In our darkness, He becomes Light. Not to mention, the cave days keep us scrappy, flexible, and desperate for the Father who has all the experience we lack and knows the answers we crave.

I imagine my jaunts of nostalgia will continue with every passing year, every birthday cake and candles. And I’ll silently shudder over my dimly lit trip-ups and smile back at the recoveries made as a honored and proud first-time parent.

Photo Credit: CGlass

Originally Published 4/7/2016