"Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."
~ 1 Corinthians 13:7
~ 1 Corinthians 13:7
"It is always easy to say "never", until one day your "never" becomes your "always". ~Scheri
The thing that I have been praying against for so long, has now become a reality. Eleven long years of praying, and those prayers, today, seem to have been in vain. My middle child has revealed his truth to me and is now displaying it for all to see. It has taken me a while to be able to share this very intimate time in our lives. Some days I handle it just fine, while other days not so much.
When my son first revealed his truth, I remember asking God why He had not answered my prayers about this. I intentionally took long moments of silence on many occasions waiting for an answer. Instead, the Holy Spirit guided me to have a conversation with my child. With a heart full of so many emotions, my child told me that he had felt this way for as long as he could remember and had been praying for God to change him since he was 5 years old. In that moment, I realized that I had been so busy being concerned about my own emotions that I did not even think about how long he had been carrying this weight on his own.
"Where do I stand, Lord, what do I do?" These were the questions I kept asking God. There were nights I barely slept waiting on Him to answer. Then, one day, He answered, in a way like only He would. His response? "You love your son, trust me and let me work this in my own way and in my own time."
Although I knew His answer was clear, I still wondered what He wanted me to do with this situation. Is loving my child an easy thing to do? Absolutely! After all, he is caring, thoughtful, considerate, creative, even tempered, responsible, independent and smart as a whip. Still, this situation is not one I would have chosen for us.
This is not an easy road to travel. For a while, I wondered how this will make me look as a mother. I wondered mostly how people would view me as a Christian mother. I guess these thoughts come to all parents when their children's lives look totally different than what they had hoped.
The more I wrestled with this thing, the more the word love kept being whispered in my ear. Finally, my heart truly rested on love. See, when I look at my child my heart bursts with the love that only a parent can feel for their child. Although I see the physical appearance of my son as he stands before me, completely transformed from the young man I had prayed he would be, I see him even more through the lenses of my heart. This is much like the way God sees us, even when we are not doing the things He desires, He still views us through the lenses of His heart.
When our children do things that cause us pain or sorrow, our first instinct is to view it as some kind of attack against us. However, the truth of the matter is that although their choices may cause us some pain, it is their journey to travel.
It may be causing me pain, but it is his journey...
That was the wisdom given to me by my dear cousin, Michelle, whom I have seen go through her own struggles in life. Oftentimes, she went through them alone. When Michelle shared that piece of wisdom with me, I thought about all the times I had traveled a path that was different from the road my mother had hoped I would. I remember how hard it was for her to watch some of the choices I made. I remember the disappointment I would see on her face when I did everything BUT what she had taught me to do. Most of all, though, I remember the fact that she loved me through it all.
My mother could see what was happening in my life with her physical sight, yet she chose to see me through the lenses of her heart. She has always been the best example of a mother to me. As God challenged me in this situation dealing with my son, He reminded me of my own journey. It was like He picked me up and placed me in different parts of my journey, much like Ebenezer Scrooge's experience in A Christmas Carol. As God took me from scene to scene, one of the few characters that was permanent was my mother. I came to understand that my job as my child's mother is to be the love that he needs, because he is going to have many who will choose to show him everything BUT love.
See, the world stands ready to crucify us. You have unbelievers who can be so hateful that they intentionally do and say things to harm you. Likewise, you have Christians who have forgotten that the way to win people for Christ is to love them right where they are as we allow God to use us as living examples of the love Jesus came to give us.
Our children will face so many things in this cruel world, and regardless of how much we disagree with their choices, we have a call to love them. We, in many instances, will be the vessels in which God wants to display His unfailing love and unending grace towards them. If we as parents choose not to be those willing vessels, then they will surely be forced to look for that love in other places. Those places could be dark, unkind and self-seeking.
In the difficult seasons of parenthood, we have to stand firm in speaking the truth to our children by telling them the reality of the consequences of their choices...all while affirming our love for them.
Love is, after all, only as real as the actions behind it!
"But what if my child's choices lead him into a life of sin?", is another question I asked God as I have been trying to navigate my way through all of this.
Again, I was convicted in my heart because I was looking at this thing that is going on inside of him and making it something totally different from any of the things I have done or felt that did not line up with God's word. I was making his thing bigger than any of my things even though I knew that anything we choose to do that is not of God is sin.
The Holy Spirit encouraged me not to just meditate on the parts of the word that would back my views of this thing, but I also needed to meditate on the parts of the word that confirmed why I have to stand in love for my child.
Yes, sin does separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2), but our sin will never separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). Furthermore, God stands ready to deliver us from our sin and always, ALWAYS comes to the rescue when we call on Him with a repentant heart (Isaiah 59:1; Psalm 51:17).
This is exactly what my process looked like when I was living a life less than God's best for me. I was separated from Him for a long time, not because He moved but because I did. Even when I was not walking with God, I still knew His love and grace were keeping me. He showed me time and time again. I would halfway walk with Him but still be out there doing my thing.Then one day I completely surrendered.
Completely surrendered...
It has been a longstanding tradition for parents to dedicate their children's lives back to God a short time after their children's births. We hold these elaborate celebrations in front of our family, friends and church family, but do we really walk away from the alter completely surrendering our children's lives to God?
As parents we always want to keep our children from making choices that may cost them dearly, and rightfully so. Here is the thing, though, there are some things we will not have any control over, especially as they grow more into their own minds and recognition of themselves. There are just some things they have to do and go through in order to learn the lessons that were specifically designed for them to learn. I believe God has His own lesson plan for each of us, and this also applies to our children.
This life that my child is choosing for himself is everything I did not want. However, it is everything that God knew it would one day be. As the fact of that Spirit-given revelation has taken root in my heart, I have finally been able to completely surrender my son's life (present and future) to God.
Getting to this point has not been easy for me. I admit it! Some days I would say to God, "You want me to completely surrender my child's life to You, but I am the one here dealing with it all up close and personally!". "Do you know the different ways this is weighing on my heart?".
"Do you trust me?", was God's only response to my questions.
Do I trust Him?...
As a mom, I am learning that adversity comes greatest when it deals with issues we face with our children. How we fare that adversity as believers all comes down to this: Do we trust God?
As I conversed with my Aunt Charlene the other night, she posed that very question to me. As I thought about our conversation after its conclusion, I asked myself this question over and over. Do I trust God enough to know that He is in this situation, and that His very hand is orchestrating every move, guiding each of my son's steps towards His expected end for him?
My heart rests on a resounding YES. As I am trusting God in this situation for an outcome that will bring glory to Him, I will walk in love for my child and with my child.
As this new level of trust floods my heart for God in this very complex circumstance I find myself in, my prayers about it have even changed.
Sometimes we have to stop praying for understanding of things our children do or go through and pray for God to place a portion of His love in our hearts so that we may love our babies the way He wants us to. After all, more importantly than being our children they ARE God's children first.
People will not always understand you making a decision to choose to love your child more than you hate the thing that they may be doing. I have certainly faced this, and I am sure I will face it over and over again. I understand that people are going to have their thoughts and opinions about how I am handling this situation, and I am ok with that. I also understand that some relationships may become strained, and in time, maybe nonexistent. These are heavy crosses to bear, but in the end there are some things that are more important than my pain over the possibility of these things happening.
When I think about it, it is more important to me that my child will one day be able to think back on this time in his life and remember seeing me and feeling my love in every scene of the journey. Moreover, it is significantly important to me that on that fateful day that I stand before God, I know that I honored His commandment to love. Period.
I cannot choose to love my kids when they are being good and doing everything I want them to do. I do not recall a single time that Jesus instructed us to love people only when they are doing what is right. It was not Jesus' rebuke of the sinners He surrounded Himself with that changed them; it was His love that made all the difference in the lives of those early believers. He could have definitely walked in criticism of those that He taught because He was perfect. Yet, His approach was to teach the unadulterated truth of God's Word as He showed love and compassion to others. He never turned His back on those He loved; instead, He chose to always love them even when they were breaking His heart, even when they condemned Him to death. That is called grace.
Never...always...grace...
There were so many times that I looked at situations like this and thought, I could never walk through that with one of my children. Now that I am faced with it, however, my never could I has turned into my I always will. My never could I came from a place of condemnation until God helped me change that statement to I always will, which comes from a place of grace. My heart rested on grace because I am reminded of how many times God has extended His grace towards me.
This situation has changed my never to always. I will always be here for my baby as he bobs and weaves through this time in his life. I will always be his mommy and he will always be my son. So, when others turn their backs on him and stop acknowledging that he is still a person who needs and deserves love, I will always be here to wrap my arms around him with motherly love and with the love of Christ.
The love of Christ...
The love of Christ empowers us to live a life that is God's best for us. The love of Christ reveals the truth to us. The truth of that love is life changing, and it strengthens us.
The love of Christ does not keep a record of wrong and it does not heap a huge pile of guilt on our shoulders. This is exactly what I was doing. I was placing a heavy load of guilt on my son, trying to impose my own will on him instead of trusting in God's will for his life.
We absolutely have a responsibility to teach and remind our children of what the scriptures say about things that they do that are wrong, because that is love. However, we must be very sure to evaluate whether we are using God's truth to plant seeds of righteousness or to run a guilt trip on our children. They do not need to be burdened with our feelings of shame or be made to feel like they are lost causes. Even though our children's choices may hurt us, they are the ones who will feel the consequences of those choices most.
Consequences of our choices...
We can choose to act in ways that hurt our children and cause them to pull further away, or we can walk in love, for love covers a multitude of sin (1 Peter 4:8). And listen, it does not just cover our children and deter them from falling away to sin, but walking in love also covers us. When we walk in any other way than love we, ourselves, are sinning. Remember that it is the love of God that saved us, and it is very likely that God chose someone who chose to allow themselves to be used by God in our lives so we could be saved. The choice we make to walk in love for our children when they choose paths that are not God's best for them may be the tool God uses to usher them into the understanding that His love has the power to save them as well.
Today, if you are facing challenges with your children, choose love over everything! Choosing love does not mean that you agree with their actions or choices, but it does mean that you will honor God by honoring the gift He shares with us each day. Love.
Though it will be hard to watch the decisions that our children make, remember that we had our own journeys to travel, and they do, too. Never stop praying for your children, and trust God with their lives. Choose to let the most important view of your child be through the lenses of your heart. In the moments that it is difficult to do, close your eyes and reflect on the fact that this is the very same way that God views you.
The thing that I have been praying against for so long, has now become a reality. Eleven long years of praying, and those prayers, today, seem to have been in vain. My middle child has revealed his truth to me and is now displaying it for all to see. It has taken me a while to be able to share this very intimate time in our lives. Some days I handle it just fine, while other days not so much.
When my son first revealed his truth, I remember asking God why He had not answered my prayers about this. I intentionally took long moments of silence on many occasions waiting for an answer. Instead, the Holy Spirit guided me to have a conversation with my child. With a heart full of so many emotions, my child told me that he had felt this way for as long as he could remember and had been praying for God to change him since he was 5 years old. In that moment, I realized that I had been so busy being concerned about my own emotions that I did not even think about how long he had been carrying this weight on his own.
"Where do I stand, Lord, what do I do?" These were the questions I kept asking God. There were nights I barely slept waiting on Him to answer. Then, one day, He answered, in a way like only He would. His response? "You love your son, trust me and let me work this in my own way and in my own time."
Although I knew His answer was clear, I still wondered what He wanted me to do with this situation. Is loving my child an easy thing to do? Absolutely! After all, he is caring, thoughtful, considerate, creative, even tempered, responsible, independent and smart as a whip. Still, this situation is not one I would have chosen for us.
This is not an easy road to travel. For a while, I wondered how this will make me look as a mother. I wondered mostly how people would view me as a Christian mother. I guess these thoughts come to all parents when their children's lives look totally different than what they had hoped.
The more I wrestled with this thing, the more the word love kept being whispered in my ear. Finally, my heart truly rested on love. See, when I look at my child my heart bursts with the love that only a parent can feel for their child. Although I see the physical appearance of my son as he stands before me, completely transformed from the young man I had prayed he would be, I see him even more through the lenses of my heart. This is much like the way God sees us, even when we are not doing the things He desires, He still views us through the lenses of His heart.
When our children do things that cause us pain or sorrow, our first instinct is to view it as some kind of attack against us. However, the truth of the matter is that although their choices may cause us some pain, it is their journey to travel.
It may be causing me pain, but it is his journey...
That was the wisdom given to me by my dear cousin, Michelle, whom I have seen go through her own struggles in life. Oftentimes, she went through them alone. When Michelle shared that piece of wisdom with me, I thought about all the times I had traveled a path that was different from the road my mother had hoped I would. I remember how hard it was for her to watch some of the choices I made. I remember the disappointment I would see on her face when I did everything BUT what she had taught me to do. Most of all, though, I remember the fact that she loved me through it all.
My mother could see what was happening in my life with her physical sight, yet she chose to see me through the lenses of her heart. She has always been the best example of a mother to me. As God challenged me in this situation dealing with my son, He reminded me of my own journey. It was like He picked me up and placed me in different parts of my journey, much like Ebenezer Scrooge's experience in A Christmas Carol. As God took me from scene to scene, one of the few characters that was permanent was my mother. I came to understand that my job as my child's mother is to be the love that he needs, because he is going to have many who will choose to show him everything BUT love.
See, the world stands ready to crucify us. You have unbelievers who can be so hateful that they intentionally do and say things to harm you. Likewise, you have Christians who have forgotten that the way to win people for Christ is to love them right where they are as we allow God to use us as living examples of the love Jesus came to give us.
Our children will face so many things in this cruel world, and regardless of how much we disagree with their choices, we have a call to love them. We, in many instances, will be the vessels in which God wants to display His unfailing love and unending grace towards them. If we as parents choose not to be those willing vessels, then they will surely be forced to look for that love in other places. Those places could be dark, unkind and self-seeking.
In the difficult seasons of parenthood, we have to stand firm in speaking the truth to our children by telling them the reality of the consequences of their choices...all while affirming our love for them.
Love is, after all, only as real as the actions behind it!
"But what if my child's choices lead him into a life of sin?", is another question I asked God as I have been trying to navigate my way through all of this.
Again, I was convicted in my heart because I was looking at this thing that is going on inside of him and making it something totally different from any of the things I have done or felt that did not line up with God's word. I was making his thing bigger than any of my things even though I knew that anything we choose to do that is not of God is sin.
The Holy Spirit encouraged me not to just meditate on the parts of the word that would back my views of this thing, but I also needed to meditate on the parts of the word that confirmed why I have to stand in love for my child.
Yes, sin does separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2), but our sin will never separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). Furthermore, God stands ready to deliver us from our sin and always, ALWAYS comes to the rescue when we call on Him with a repentant heart (Isaiah 59:1; Psalm 51:17).
This is exactly what my process looked like when I was living a life less than God's best for me. I was separated from Him for a long time, not because He moved but because I did. Even when I was not walking with God, I still knew His love and grace were keeping me. He showed me time and time again. I would halfway walk with Him but still be out there doing my thing.Then one day I completely surrendered.
Completely surrendered...
It has been a longstanding tradition for parents to dedicate their children's lives back to God a short time after their children's births. We hold these elaborate celebrations in front of our family, friends and church family, but do we really walk away from the alter completely surrendering our children's lives to God?
As parents we always want to keep our children from making choices that may cost them dearly, and rightfully so. Here is the thing, though, there are some things we will not have any control over, especially as they grow more into their own minds and recognition of themselves. There are just some things they have to do and go through in order to learn the lessons that were specifically designed for them to learn. I believe God has His own lesson plan for each of us, and this also applies to our children.
This life that my child is choosing for himself is everything I did not want. However, it is everything that God knew it would one day be. As the fact of that Spirit-given revelation has taken root in my heart, I have finally been able to completely surrender my son's life (present and future) to God.
Getting to this point has not been easy for me. I admit it! Some days I would say to God, "You want me to completely surrender my child's life to You, but I am the one here dealing with it all up close and personally!". "Do you know the different ways this is weighing on my heart?".
"Do you trust me?", was God's only response to my questions.
Do I trust Him?...
As a mom, I am learning that adversity comes greatest when it deals with issues we face with our children. How we fare that adversity as believers all comes down to this: Do we trust God?
As I conversed with my Aunt Charlene the other night, she posed that very question to me. As I thought about our conversation after its conclusion, I asked myself this question over and over. Do I trust God enough to know that He is in this situation, and that His very hand is orchestrating every move, guiding each of my son's steps towards His expected end for him?
My heart rests on a resounding YES. As I am trusting God in this situation for an outcome that will bring glory to Him, I will walk in love for my child and with my child.
As this new level of trust floods my heart for God in this very complex circumstance I find myself in, my prayers about it have even changed.
Sometimes we have to stop praying for understanding of things our children do or go through and pray for God to place a portion of His love in our hearts so that we may love our babies the way He wants us to. After all, more importantly than being our children they ARE God's children first.
People will not always understand you making a decision to choose to love your child more than you hate the thing that they may be doing. I have certainly faced this, and I am sure I will face it over and over again. I understand that people are going to have their thoughts and opinions about how I am handling this situation, and I am ok with that. I also understand that some relationships may become strained, and in time, maybe nonexistent. These are heavy crosses to bear, but in the end there are some things that are more important than my pain over the possibility of these things happening.
When I think about it, it is more important to me that my child will one day be able to think back on this time in his life and remember seeing me and feeling my love in every scene of the journey. Moreover, it is significantly important to me that on that fateful day that I stand before God, I know that I honored His commandment to love. Period.
I cannot choose to love my kids when they are being good and doing everything I want them to do. I do not recall a single time that Jesus instructed us to love people only when they are doing what is right. It was not Jesus' rebuke of the sinners He surrounded Himself with that changed them; it was His love that made all the difference in the lives of those early believers. He could have definitely walked in criticism of those that He taught because He was perfect. Yet, His approach was to teach the unadulterated truth of God's Word as He showed love and compassion to others. He never turned His back on those He loved; instead, He chose to always love them even when they were breaking His heart, even when they condemned Him to death. That is called grace.
Never...always...grace...
There were so many times that I looked at situations like this and thought, I could never walk through that with one of my children. Now that I am faced with it, however, my never could I has turned into my I always will. My never could I came from a place of condemnation until God helped me change that statement to I always will, which comes from a place of grace. My heart rested on grace because I am reminded of how many times God has extended His grace towards me.
This situation has changed my never to always. I will always be here for my baby as he bobs and weaves through this time in his life. I will always be his mommy and he will always be my son. So, when others turn their backs on him and stop acknowledging that he is still a person who needs and deserves love, I will always be here to wrap my arms around him with motherly love and with the love of Christ.
The love of Christ...
The love of Christ empowers us to live a life that is God's best for us. The love of Christ reveals the truth to us. The truth of that love is life changing, and it strengthens us.
The love of Christ does not keep a record of wrong and it does not heap a huge pile of guilt on our shoulders. This is exactly what I was doing. I was placing a heavy load of guilt on my son, trying to impose my own will on him instead of trusting in God's will for his life.
We absolutely have a responsibility to teach and remind our children of what the scriptures say about things that they do that are wrong, because that is love. However, we must be very sure to evaluate whether we are using God's truth to plant seeds of righteousness or to run a guilt trip on our children. They do not need to be burdened with our feelings of shame or be made to feel like they are lost causes. Even though our children's choices may hurt us, they are the ones who will feel the consequences of those choices most.
Consequences of our choices...
We can choose to act in ways that hurt our children and cause them to pull further away, or we can walk in love, for love covers a multitude of sin (1 Peter 4:8). And listen, it does not just cover our children and deter them from falling away to sin, but walking in love also covers us. When we walk in any other way than love we, ourselves, are sinning. Remember that it is the love of God that saved us, and it is very likely that God chose someone who chose to allow themselves to be used by God in our lives so we could be saved. The choice we make to walk in love for our children when they choose paths that are not God's best for them may be the tool God uses to usher them into the understanding that His love has the power to save them as well.
Today, if you are facing challenges with your children, choose love over everything! Choosing love does not mean that you agree with their actions or choices, but it does mean that you will honor God by honoring the gift He shares with us each day. Love.
Though it will be hard to watch the decisions that our children make, remember that we had our own journeys to travel, and they do, too. Never stop praying for your children, and trust God with their lives. Choose to let the most important view of your child be through the lenses of your heart. In the moments that it is difficult to do, close your eyes and reflect on the fact that this is the very same way that God views you.