by T.D. Jakes
Author T.D. Jakes tells single parents not to despair. God has chosen you, Jakes says, to form the next generation's character.
I know there are days when all of us feel as if we are in over our heads. But when those days arise and courage seems to wilt, remember that God's grace is on you for these moments. He will strengthen you against all odds.
Some of you have always had someone else to rely on. But now you are facing the challenge of raising your children alone.
Are you alone? Not really. You never were. God has been there all the time. And the same God who brought you through all of your earlier challenges is waiting for you to acknowledge Him in your current situation.
Do you know that many of the blessings that are on you will pass to your children? For example, it is a blessing to have wise parents. Wise parents pass their reasoning and mentality to their children. This creates a generational blessing.
We have heard about generational curses, but we ought to understand generational blessings, too. If a drug-filled mother gives birth to a drug-addicted child, then why can't a spiritually regenerated mother have a child who has been blessed by her regeneration?
The favor of God is with you as a parent. His hand is there to bless you if you will trust Him.
God's design is to bring strength out of weakness and power out of pain. I challenge you now to allow Christ to equip you with the tools you need to become what God would have you to be as a single parent.
God's blessings can break out in your life as never before, but it takes faith in God. Faith is having the grace to accept the challenges and the struggles of your course, but doggedly and tenaciously searching for the victory within the victimized.
You are the vessel God has chosen to labor with Him in forming the character of the next generation. You may not live long enough to see all of your fruit, but it will be your teachings, your standards that shape your family for years after you are gone. Do it with dignity and character. It is your contribution to the next age.
No wonder the enemy wants to overwhelm and discourage you. When he gets you, he gets two for the price of one. He affects you and the child in one blow.
Tell the devil no! Tell him he will not get a two-for-one sale here. You will guard with all diligence what God has entrusted to you.
Charge your children with faith and power. They are the future.
Consider this: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate” (Ps. 127:4-5, NKJV).
If my children are my arrows, they are my defense. They are my defense against emptiness. They are my defense against building a house that no one will inherit. They are my defense against having no hand to hold when death comes to carry me home. They are my defense against anonymity in the next generation.
You may never be famous, but your children might be. Few would recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother. Few would recognize the names of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' parents. Even fewer would know Colin Powell's parents. But somewhere behind the curtains, in the shadows of the stage, there is a face, a hand, an apron, a father or a mother who said, “I will raise my bow.”
Shawn Akers 
Rabbi Eric Tokajer 
