I didn’t think I’d make it this far. I didn’t think my kids or I would survive long enough for them to enter university. “Oh, to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be,” so the old hymn goes.
At breakfast, hubby said to my daughter, ” You should probably bring Band-Aids just in case you get blisters — it’s a big campus and you’ll go on a walking tour.” Yes, Dad, she answered.
A bit later, he asked, “Do you have a towel? And bottled water? Oh, and some biscuits just in case you get hungry on the walking tour?” My daughter looked at her father and said, “Dad, relax, I’m going off to college, I’m not going off to war.”
I suppose, for us parents, having a child go off on their own in the big, wide wild world out there kind of feels like we are, in fact, sending them off to fight in a war. There will be a battle, there will be a war and the battleground will be their hearts and their minds.
I shudder at the thought that my babies (in my head they will always be my ‘babies’) would be out there making their own way, struggling to find their place under the sun all by themselves, without me to help them or guide them!
What if they get lost? What I they get hurt? What if they fall among bad kids? What if they adapt shallow values? What if they can’t tell what’s right from what’s wrong? What if, they turn their backs on everything I have taught them? What if they turn from the light to the darkness? I think my worst fear is that, after I have preached to others, my own children will be castaways of the faith!
The reasonable parent inside me says, echoing Crush Dude, “Let’s see how the little squirt does, flying solo.” Shudder, shudder, shudder. But, then, when I was 15, my parents trusted me to do the right thing even if I was a whole continent away in Des Moines, Iowa, finishing high school as an exchange student.
Were my parents’ nerves made of steel? Did they not think about the dangers– I could end up with my picture on a milk carton! Did they just want to get rid of me? How could they sleep at night with me a world away doing who knows what? Were they not afraid that I would turn my back on all that I have been taught and embrace new thoughts, new beliefs, new values?
Then, I thought, my parents are like me. We believe that when a person believes in Jesus Christ and surrenders his or her whole life and soul to Him and takes Him as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit of Christ dwells inside that believer. The indwelling Holy Spirit stays and, if the person is willing, the Holy Spirit will actively guide, direct and help that believer.
A believer who is willing to be led will be led. A believer who is willing to hear will be spoken to by that still small voice. If that person is at a crossroads, the Holy Spirit will plead with that believer to choose that path that pleases Christ. I have to trust that the same Holy Spirit who resides in me also resides in my children as they have professed to be believers. This is the time they will see for themselves if their faith works as the Bible promised.
The cold fear in my heart immediately becomes warm praise to Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever. As He had kept His promise to His apostles and His disciples that He will never leave them nor forsake them and that He will be with them always unto the end of the world, He will keep that promise to me and to my children.
If my kids survive college with their faith intact, then it will not be due to my spiritual training or to the grounding they have received from church. It will be because Jesus Christ is not some character in a book or a favorite character from some oft-repeated bedtime story. It will be because Jesus Christ, in His grace and glory, has revealed Himself personally to my children as the loving, just and holy GOD that He truly is. It will be because he has become real to my children. He is the God who was made flesh and dwells among us. He will be the God who walks with them and talks with them and tells them that they are His own. He will be the God with whom they have to do.
It is not the time now to worry, or to be afraid, it is time now to pray and to lay claim the promises in the Bible. This is, after all, a battle. It is a war for the faith and it will be won on my knees as a parent. By the grace of God, I will, someday, be able to say, that I have not ceased to teach and preach Christ to my children, and to pray for them with tears night and day. And someday, by the mercy and grace of God, I will be able to say that I have no greater joy than to see my children walk in the truth of the Scriptures, and walk in the light of Jesus Christ. Someday, we will all face Christ together to receive rewards which we will so thankfully offer up to Him in praise for His grace.
When my daughter reads this, she will roll her eyeballs at me and say, “There really is no need to go sentimental on me, mom.” Godspeed, kids. May you be blameless and harmless, sons and daughters of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom, may you shine as lights in the world. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
See you later!
