For Our Children

If you've been a parent for any length of time, say, more than a year or so, you've learned that once your children start thinking for themselves, at some point you're going to have to let them. Now, I'm not talking about sending a two-year old into traffic, but allowing them to experience the consequences of throwing a toy and having it break? Yep. And the older they get, the more painful the consequences --for us. Remember your parents telling you, "This is going to hurt us more than it hurts you"? Sure, it's hard to see your child's favorite toy smashed and lying in a heap on top of the trash, but chances are, you're going to see your child's tears, you're going to know that what you've allowed has made an impact, and you're going to have some hope your child will never do that again. But the older child? 

This world is hard, and for our children to survive in it, they can think they need to become hard as well. The consequences of taking your thirteen-year old's game because he's spending more time with it than his Algebra may or may not get the reaction we desire. We might find ourselves in the same place just three years down the road when his cell phone bill hasn't been paid for two months. We remove the phone, hoping for a broken heart (after all, that is what we want, isn't it? a heart that is soft and humble and teachable and grateful). But the broken heart doesn't come. At twenty, the car insurance hasn't been paid, and we have to end the privilege of convenient transportation. With each intervention we become more grieved, more desperate, more broken-hearted. But the child?

I am praying today for each parent who knows exactly what I'm talking about. I am praying for each parent who is reliving moments of pain and worry and heartache as they read this. I am praying, too, for our children: for soft hearts, for humility and gratitude, for teachable spirits, and for armor to shield them from the world in a way that will make them stronger and better, not tougher and more like it. I am praying for their friends, that they will be faithful and honest. I am praying for their teachers, that they will value the privilege of shaping young minds and they will receive holy, Heavenly wisdom to pass on to those in their care. And I am praying for our churches and fellow believers, that we will stand with parents in prayer, we will not forget to lift them up as often as they come to mind, we will serve them in any way God calls us to serve, and we will hold their children as close to our hearts as their Heavenly Father does.

In Jesus' name.