If you walk down ANY parenting section in ANY store, you’re bound to find a ba-jllion books on how to parent, or even how to be “The Best Parent You Can Be.” But what does that actually mean? What kind of parent do you want to be or hope to be one day?

A few days ago, I re-met Josie (we are officially buddies now, so a picture had to be taken). Josie is a pretty funny kid, the oldest of her siblings, and she gets to travel quite a bit with her momma during the summer time (because school is very important). She also fascinated The Hubby Nathan and I, singing along to every song her momma sang, with this admiration in her face and this joy in her heart. See, Josie is musician Laura Story’s daughter, and to witness her being impacted in such a way at such a young age was the best part of the night! No parent book, blog, or expert could teach us what we learned that night: that it doesn’t matter how young your child is, they can be affected very powerfully by who you are and what you do as a parent (no pressure)!

See, I don’t care if our Little Lady Isabella thinks it’s cool that I talk on the radio. It’s WHAT and WHO I talk about that I want her to be blown away by. The Hubby Nathan doesn’t care if Izzy boasts about the multiple businesses he owns. Instead, he wants her to know WHO owns his heart, his life, and how he shows that to the people around him. We want to be a shining light of Jesus to Isabella, and we pray every day she will see that (even in our flaws) and feel that love for herself. And seeing Josie already start to see that through Laura gave us some hope, made us want to continue to pray this prayer even more fervently.

We know Izzy isn’t going to be a “perfect” kid…NO kid is! But to pray that her heart knows Jesus, and she has a relationship with Him just as The Hubby and I do, THAT matters more than her being perfect. And for her to learn that from us, now THAT’s the kind of parents we hope to be!