"My kids don't respect me because I wasn't strict enough when they were young."
How it sounds in your head: You were too soft, too permissive. You see other mothers who ran tighter ships and their kids turned out better. Your kids talk to you in ways you would never have spoken to your mother. You failed to demand respect and now you don't have it.
"And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers."
-- Malachi 4:6Religious performance teaching that relationship is earned through proper discipline techniques rather than covenant love.
You can replay specific moments where you should have been firmer, set boundaries, demanded better behavior. The lack of respect you experience now seems like the direct consequence of those failures.
Samuel's own sons were corrupt judges who perverted justice, yet Samuel remained honored as a prophet and his sons' failures didn't disqualify God's favor on him. God raised up the next generation despite the previous one's rebellion.
I REFUSE the lie that my children's hearts are hardened beyond the Father's reach because I wasn't strict enough. IT IS WRITTEN that HE turns the hearts of children to parents—this is HIS work, not the result of my past discipline strategies. My parenting style does NOT limit God's ability to restore relationship. IT IS WRITTEN in 1 John 4:18 that perfect love casts out fear—and HIS perfect love is working in my children right now. I am covered by the BARAK blessing, which protected Isaac even when he was a permissive father to manipulative Jacob. The Father specializes in impossible family reconciliations.
The Father is already at work in your children's hearts, writing a story of restoration that has nothing to do with your discipline report card. He's turning hearts right now, in this season, regardless of what you did or didn't do in theirs.