“In this world, you will have trouble,” Jesus says in John 16.

Those words are difficult enough to accept for ourselves. But when it comes to the children we love, they can feel almost impossible to receive. Maybe, many of us find ourselves thinking, if I do everything perfectly, then the kids will be all right.

In “I’ve Been a Prosperity Gospel Parent,” Gretchen Ronnevik describes her own struggle with this type of thinking. As a young mom and dad, she and her husband wanted to find the perfect formula for raising children.

“We thought if we could just do this Christian life well, we wouldn’t have to depend on God’s grace all that much,” Ronnevik writes. “Grace would just be our backup for unusual days—for the curveballs.”

As her children began to grow up and face challenges, though, Ronnevik found herself rethinking the importance of grace. She realized her inability to pave a perfect path for her kids wasn’t bad. Instead, it was a fact of life that could point her children to their need for God.

In John 16, Jesus doesn’t end with the guarantee of tough days ahead. He encourages his followers to “take heart” for a specific reason: not their own abilities, but because Jesus himself has “overcome the world.” May we set our eyes on that hope, recognizing the profound gift of God’s grace in every moment of family life.