Good morning, friends! Today we're so excited to feature a guest post from Stephanie Hinz, who writes about how her own response to her children after a discouraging parenting situation helped clarify and reveal God's heart for us, his own children. And speaking of motherhood, our new e-book "Grace for the Imperfect Mom: A 31-Day Invitation to Refreshed Mothering, has arrived! See the bottom of the post for more details. Here's Stephanie:
 
I drove down the road, sobbing salty tears of frustration and discouragement. Once again, I felt like such a failure. Letting out an exhausted sigh as I parked my car at the craft store, I doused my eyes with saline to mask my miserable mama's cry. I felt lousy and weary, but I was no stranger to those feelings.

The majority of our Saturday had been nice. My husband and I had thought it would also be nice to let our four school-age kids have a sleepover in the boys' bedroom, watching a movie. They were so excited but couldn't agree on what to watch. At dinner they voted but it was still a tie. My husband and I came up with a solution and I declared that if anyone was upset about the final choice, they could just go to sleep...in their own bed. Before the decision was made, our older daughter and younger son were already upset about the sleeping bag arrangement. Once the movie was selected, our 11-year-old flopped down on his bed crying, and our 5-year-old was sent to her room for throwing an all-out fit! Wow! How in the world could a fun plan go awry so very quickly? Why did this seem to happen here so often? How had we gone so wrong in our parenting?