Over the years, I’ve known numbers of good parents who did their best with their kids, only to see them go wild as soon as they left home. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what happened to the prodigal son’s father.
At any rate, we’ve asked ourselves, What went wrong? What could the parents have done better? …only to come to this terrifying conclusion: at the end of the day, the kids get to make their own decisions. You build character and hope that will guide them, but in the end, it’s one more thing you can’t control. Dang!
My kids are little, and I’m getting introduced to this idea of what it’s like… My kids go to school, and now there are other adults taking primary roles in their lives. Stories and phrases and mannerisms come home that I don’t recognize until I’ve spend time with the teacher… Bingo! That’s where he gets that expression! They are being influenced by other people (who aren’t me).
My older son is now reading well enough that I can’t read everything he reads. We’ve had some pretty interesting conversations about topics I never would have guessed (no, there may have been people who worshiped Hercules, but he wasn’t a real god, and we don’t need to worship him). I liked it when I knew every show they watched, every book they read…maybe a little too much.
We had some scary experiences with our first son, and I can remember the times it all came down to this: God, I trust You with my baby. That dependence doesn’t change as they get older – I still need to trust.
For me, this was the most encouraging part: God is in control. You can’t go everywhere your child goes, but God can. He is the child’s heavenly Father, and He is fully capable of protecting him.
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