Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 that “this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Parenting is profoundly sanctifying. When we were first married, the new relationship revealed rooms of selfishness in our lives – and within those rooms doors to other rooms, and in those rooms yet other doors and closets. The revelation was the beginning of an ongoing, lifelong housecleaning and the addition of children truly deepened the process. The inconvenience of parenting – the self-giving, the prayer, the dependence upon God, the growth – can be an experience of sanctification like no other… The discipline of parenting can be the road to an enlarged soul and the path to unimagined heights of spiritual development. That’s the way God planned it (Kent and Barbara Hughes).