Dependent on God

The term codependency is used to describe a person who is very needy emotionally. They literally draw their motivation and enthusiasm for life from those around them. If things go well, they feel good, but if things don’t, they are usually depressed. Codependent people who are this way often feel responsible to make the people around them happy and try to meet their emotional needs. They feel most important when they are needed and very insignificant when they are not needed. They are dependent on the reactions and responses of others to meet their needs. Codependency is dangerous and is an impossible mission to fulfill, and that’s why codependent people are mostly unhappy. Codependency often begins very early in our lives.

Mothers, you are the first person with whom your child forms a connection. It is a God ordained—vital connection that we call the maternal bond. In those first two years approximately, you are the center of that child’s life. However, as the child grows into childhood, it is so essential that you diminish that bond that has become so strong. At around age two your influence over that child is almost omnipotent to the child. As a mother who wants her children to flourish, you deliberately begin to pull back and watch the bond grow with the child’s father and extended family and other children. The infant and small child has been completely dependent on you, but now you want the child to learn to be independent. Additionally, as a believer you want your child to learn dependency on God. Codependency with another person is harmful, but learning to be dependent on God is a good thing.

You begin to carefully watch and observe the child and pray that God will help you grow the child’s own autonomy. You want your child to develop their own personality and not be a copy of you. At the same time you want them to learn discipline, respect and self-control. That only happens as the child respects your parental authority. You do the child no favors if you are raising them without the slightest bit of self-restraint and discipline in their life. If, however, you teach them discipline and encourage their own bent to come to life—you will experience the greatest satisfaction a mother can know.

David said that the Lord was his strength and because of that he was helped (Ps 28:7). When we look to people, even our mother or father or spouse for our strength, we will be disappointed, but when we look to God, we will never be disappointed.