It can be interesting reading through an insurance policy and looking at just what all is considered a “covered event”.  House blown up by a gas explosion?  Yes.  By a terrorist’s bomb?  No.  Kitchen flooded by a nearby overflowing stream?  No.  By a break in the line to your ice-maker?  Yes.  Health insurance has its own intricacies.  It’s always up to the insured to understand what is or isn’t covered.  Sometimes, even if something is covered, if it’s found that you didn’t exercise “due diligence” in trying to prevent an occurrence – failing to maintain your vehicle’s brakes, doing your own faulty wiring, leaving doors unlocked – you could find your insurance company refusing to pay up, or at least reducing your claim payment.

I was thinking about this while reading a sobering and excellent article last night on parenting, “Solving the Crisis in Homeschooling:  Exposing the 7 Major Blind Spots of Homeschoolers” by Reb Bradley http://www.familyministries.com/HS_Crisis.htm.   (There’s also a shortened version of it on Josh Harris’s blog.)  The author does an excellent job of dissecting a number of problems common not just to homeschoolers, but some of them to parents in general, especially those of conservative bent.  I would recommend it for any parent who wants to be challenged to self-reflection.  But be warned – if your kids are already grown or well into their teens, and you see yourself in this article, you could end up feeling terribly guilty, exceedingly depressed, and convinced that you had thoroughly “blown it”.

That’s a common type of parenting regret.  We parented following some direction – maybe some teaching, a book, a class.  Or maybe we just went with our own intuition.  We were so sure we were doing The Right Thing!  Our intentions were entirely honorable and lofty, and because we knew that our goals were right, we were convinced that our methods must be as well.   Then somehow we ran across somebody who challenged our ideas – an article like this one, a talk with a friend, a talk show – and we started seeing things in a different light.  We realized that what we’d been doing wasn’t, in fact, the best way after all.  We didn’t MEAN to short-change our kids, but we just didn’t know better.

Then there are things we did know.  We may like to comfort ourselves by saying, “Well, I did the best I could” – but we all know that’s not always been true.  We don’t  always do the best we could.  We often do “know better”, but for whatever reason, we choose not to do it.  We’re tired, so we yell.   We’re frustrated, so we make a hasty judgment in a dispute.  We’ve got a headache, so we get sarcastic.  We’re in a hurry through our own fault, so we get impatient at the naturally slower tempo of our children.  Whatever our excuse, sometimes we just do make the wrong choice.

All parents have regrets of the general wish-I’d-done-it-differently type, too – things that weren’t “wrong”, per se, but that if we had it to do over again, we’d change.  Less housework, more Play-Doh.  Less “no” and more “yes”.  More “Way to go!” and less “Cut that out!”  More mud puddles, less hurry.  Maybe we wish we’d gone camping, or travelled, bought a bigger house, bought a smaller house, did more school, did less school.  There’s never a shortage of shoulda, woulda, coulda’s.

Sometimes the things we feel bad about are things that were beyond our control.  I have always had a major temper problem with my kids.  It frightened me how angry how quickly I could become.  I yelled.  A lot.  Over-the-top!  Part of me always felt “trapped” inside, watching myself do those things, unable to stop myself, hating what was going on, but unable to stop, no matter how much I prayed about it or had others pray for me.  A year ago, I was (finally!) diagnosed with Bipolar II, a somewhat milder version of the more infamous form most likely to make the news.  Suddenly, I understood what was going on all for those years.  (I’m on medication now that has made a wonderful difference.)  Although I know intellectually now that I was not responsible for those bipolar-induced anger episodes, it doesn’t stop my heart from still aching over the pain my family went through.

So… what does all this have to do with insurance??  As far as God is concerned, all those mistakes of parenting are COVERED EVENTS!  Yes, indeed.  Says so, right there in our insurance policy.  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1.  and “If we confess our sins, God, Who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  I John. 1:9  and “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  It means just what it says.  Whether we need forgiveness for doing what we knew we shouldn’t, or grace for doing wrong out of ignorance, for not doing what we wish we had, or for doing what we couldn’t help, it’s all COVERED!  He never says, “Well, you should have known better, so this one you’re stuck with.”  or “I told you so!” or “How could you?!”  No, His forgiveness and grace cover everything, mercifully, freely, with abundant grace.

The insurance commercial shows everything rewinding back to where you have all your old life intact, as if the disaster never happened, but of course, we know real life isn’t like that.   Forgiveness and no condemnation don’t mean we get a “do over”.   The fact that God has covered our sins and short-comings, doesn’t necessarily change the situation we’re in – but it should change our  perspective and how we deal with whatever we face.  We may still feel sadness over the past, but rather than wasting precious time and emotional energy beating ourselves up over things that can’t be changed, we need to extend to ourselves the same compassion that HE does.  He remembers our frame far better than we allow ourselves to.  We cannot change the past, any more than Paul could erase his haunting pre-conversion history, but, like him, we can press forward and change what we’re doing now.   When we see through God’s perspective of being covered, He can help us remember that while we are responsible for how we parent, our kids are responsible for their response.  We’ve all seen kids come from great families yet end up going wild, or from terrible families yet turn out great, haven’t we?  It’s simplistic – and even egotistical – to try to take all the blame or credit ourselves for how our kids turn out.  What a relief to let go of that burden!  I think the most important thing about grasping what it means for all our sins, errors, faults, short-comings, and regrets to be covered is to understand that God is bigger than our blunders, and we can trust that He will use even our blunders for His purposes.  There is nothing we have done as parents  that is beyond God’s ability to deal with.   Nothing we have done has ever caught God unawares or unprepared.  He’s never yet said, “Oh, my goodness, I didn’t see that one coming.  Now what on earth am I going to do??”  Unlike the insurance agent who must wait for the call to know of a claim, He not only knows the call will come, but is already planning the repairs before we even know we’re going to need them.

We’re not just in “good hands” – we’re in the Best.  We don’t just have a “good neighbor”, we have a loving Father.  Our Agent paid a premium no one else could pay to get us our policy, and there are no exclusions on it.  Relax!  He’s got us covered!