Being a parent is such a challenging thing.
That was the understatement of the year, right? I mean, sure, it has big rewards, but not without significant cost and I, personally, was not prepared for the cost.
For those who may not be aware, nearly 20 years ago, I prayed that God would bring me a husband and children….but I wasn’t specific enough and God, having the sense of humor that He does, blessed me with both at once.
Ok. Maybe that was just my making a choice and not really listening all that well, but regardless I married a man with 3 boys who all lived with us full time for the entirety of our marriage (in hindsight, there are times I truly wonder how much of a blessing the marriage itself was, but that’s a topic for another day) and while I truly do love these boys as much as I possibly can, there are times that wonder how in heavens name they turned out the way they did and I somehow managed not to just beat them upside the head with a 2×4 to knock some sense into them.
I’m kidding, of course. I would never hurt any of them, but I can honestly state that only children have the unique ability to cause such exquisite pain that I find myself wondering if it would be less painful to inflict myself with a million paper cuts and pour fresh salt and lemon juice in them for an hour.
What makes me think about such lovely thoughts on such a pretty summer day? Well as I sit here I am reflecting on the struggles my youngest is experiencing and creating.
He is a wonderful, tender-hearted kid who suffers from pretty severe ADHD and depression. These two things have been a tremendous challenge for him as he tries both positive and negative means to control the impulses and depression that drive him, make him feel like he’s crawling out of his own skin and keep him longing for some unknown source of happiness and peace e has yet to find.
And therein lays the root of the struggle he is currently experiencing.
At this time, he is choosing to act on some things that have the potential to have lasting effects on his personal relationships and lifestyle. Despite how much he tries, he typically sets himself up to fail and cannot force him to make better choices, act more responsibly, or choose not to have instant gratification in a given situation.
I love him dearly and want to be able to do whatever I can for him, but as I look at the life he is leading at the ripe old age of 26, my heart breaks for these choices because it feels to me that they continue to distance him from the life I had believe God wants him to live.
And then I remember that God is God, not me.
Only God knows what His plan is for the son that is currently struggling or the other two, for that matter.
Only God knows what His plan is for any of us and I can virtually guarantee that His plan doesn’t match the one we have in our heads.
We all want our kids all to be happy, healthy, successful, and overall the very best people they can possibly be. But God’s plan is bigger than our mortal minds can comprehend and because of that, not all of our children (let alone each of us) will have the opportunity to live the lives we desperately long for them to lead. As a matter of fact, some of us and some of our kids are going to end up doing some pretty awful things and make some really terrible decisions and there isn’t a thing we can do about it.
And each of these actions fit perfectly into God’s plan.
And that feels more than a little unfair.
Why is it that God places these tiny beings in our live, grow, love and develop into unique, amazing people only to have send this wonderful little human in a direction so far from what we had envisioned and thought He had promised?
Weren’t we the ones that spent sleepless nights nursing them through illnesses or laboring for endless hours at the kitchen table on one homework project after another? Weren’t we the ones championing them on through sports activities, relationship woes, and decisions that either were or at least felt life altering? Of course we were…
…and so was God.
As painful as it has been for me to realize, I have come to understand that for every moment I have spent worrying about my kids – this one perhaps a little more than the others – God has watched him go through it twice; once when He created Him and saw the life He created laid out before Him and the second time, as He witnessed this child actually make the expected errors.
And here’s the particularly difficult part.
The fact is that because God created this boy just the way he is and knew exactly what choices he would make as he walked through this life means that God blessed this life as it was. Not some better version of it or some idealistic view of what my sons’ life could be, but just as it is, warts and all.
And, as the Bible said, it was good.
Ok. You’re right.
The Bible didn’t say that about my child specifically, but in my view, that is in fact what God said about all of our children because God is a perfect God. He is all knowing and all loving and because he is God, He doesn’t make mistakes nor change His mind. So following this logic, the decisions my son is making are working together for God’s plan for him and those he will influence and it will turn out just the way God intended. My job, as his stepmother and as a faithful believer in God, is to trust His will is perfect, even if it’s not what I want.
God is not nor will He ever be a vending machine for our wishes. And much as we want to think otherwise, this world and all that is in it doesn’t really revolve around each of us individually. In all honestly, this little tidbit has really been eating at me these past few months as I listen to people talk about how God has done x,y, and z for them because He loves them. Why does that bother me? Because those statements make our faith in God about us not about Him. And these little sentences are the gateways to failures in faith because when things go awry, we can’t believe that the same God who has done all of these things for us individually would think to do something that doesn’t make us happy.
From my little corner of the world, this is one of the reasons Christians fall away from their faith and those we want to lead to the faith do not follow. What they see is when we pray for something specific and it doesn’t come true, it must mean that God is not all loving or that there is something inherently unloving about me.
And this is entirely incorrect,
The plan God has created is better than the one we have in our heads and this plan means we will not have everything we want nor will our lives be what we think they be or maybe what we think we (or other people) deserve. Our lives will only be perfect in the perspective of the truly perfect, loving God.
So as parents, aunts, uncles, and all other family members and friends, we are called to sit back and watch as those we love make stupid mistakes and love them anyway. We cry out in pain as those we love are unjustly treated or even killed and we must trust that our loving, omnipotent God is still in control and despite how much it hurts or angers us, He is still perfect.
And if, by chance, you are in a similar situation as I am and you are angrily reading this thinking clearly I don’t understand the pain you are currently enduring and could not possibly know what you have and are going to have to deal with, you are right. I am not for the most infinitesimal moments suggesting that I do…
…but God does.
Just look at the cross.
crookedroadfaith 