Wednesday, April 26th was quite an auspicious day for my eldest daughter. She declared her independence on that day. Independence from parental supervision, oversight, management, advice, and provision.
Somewhat.
Somewhat.
It reminds me of a favorite book from my childhood, We Were Tired of Living in a House (by Liesel Moak Skorpen) where the kids became tired of the rules and regulations of the household and took off on their own, to live according to their own principles. They try a number of different living arrangements but none of them are satisfactory, so eventually they return home, having learned their lesson: There's No Place Like Home. {Perhaps they should've just watched The Wizard of Oz.}
I don't expect Deb to come home any time soon, though, other than for a visit. She's decided that she doesn't want this to be her home anymore. She's setting up her own home elsewhere, with someone else.
We weren't expecting this to occur quite so soon. Certainly she's been dropping hints for the past year or so, ever since she left high school, that she was ready to move on. Certainly she's been making us aware without any doubt that she finds our old-fashioned Christian morality oppressive and anachronistic. Certainly we were aware that she, like many in her generation, find nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea of living with their significant other without benefit of marriage. But we had hoped that she might at least wait until after college was completed, for our sake, before dropping the pretense and taking up the lifestyle she knows we don't approve of.
But she's never been the hypocritical type. There are many things I admire about my daughter, and her blunt honesty is one of them. She knows what she believes, and she isn't afraid to state her beliefs even if she knows they are going to hurt some feelings. She is strong and stubborn and willful and determined and confident and ambitious and loving and so many other wonderful things; I'm deeply disappointed that we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I'm very hopeful that things will turn out all right for her.
Still, as a father I can't help but feel like even more of a failure than I had before, after bungling the situation with Adam and his anxiety, with James and his decision to move to Germany to live with his girlfriend, and now with Deb's decision to live with her boyfriend. Coupled with all the other things that we've been struggling with these last few years - disastrous work experiences, turmoil at church, anxiety over getting the basement done - I know they all sound pedantic, considering all the other tragedies going on in the world today - but I don't really know how much more I can take at this point. I spent most of the day Thursday, the day after she didn't come home, unable to do anything, in a completely depressive haze.
I'm praying, as I've been praying about all these things, as we've been praying for our children over and over again all these years, and feeling that despair that David felt:
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
6 comments:
Sigh. Parenting is way harder than I ever thought it would be. Maybe because I believed the lie that if we perfectly teach our children our values and perfectly model our beliefs, our children will perfectly and completely embrace them and will live a perfectly blissful life.
But that would imply that my values and beliefs are perfect to begin with. And that my children had no right to think for themselves.
Try to think of it as a reboot. Our children are kind, loving, intelligent people and when they have erased all of the input we have given them, they can begin to build their own faith without the elements of foolishness that have crept in due to our own failings.
I am praying they eventually will have the wisdom to separate the world's foolishness from the mix, as well.
One of our brothers once told me something to the effect that he thought having kids was a bad idea because there was no guarantee that they wouldn't break your heart. Well, I can't help thinking that we break God's heart all the time and yet he keeps making new people, and I love being a mom.
At any rate, I am convinced that we cannot own our children's choices. They make their own decisions in life, their own successes and their own mistakes. I have never been the perfect parent, but my "bungling" is not the cause of any choices they might make which go against the values I tried to teach them.
Having children who think differently than I do has given me reason to be more humble and less judgmental. I used to know everything about parenting; I used to know deep down inside that parents whose children did x or y must have done something, or not done something, to cause that. But you know what? It doesn't work that way. Our parents did not make our choices for us. We don't make choices for our children.
God is still working in their lives. And ours.
I love you. You are a good Dad. You trust your Father. He is at work in all the places you can't.
I love you.
Jan
My heart goes out to you, Robbie and Cheryl. Parenting is hard to echo ,Jeanne. I will be praying for all of you. Love you guys! 🙏🏻
YhismismTammy Elrod btw, didn't look like it showed in the comment above.
Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement. You are the ones who make it possible for us to continue, as you show us the love of Christ and remind us that he is in charge.
We are so very grateful for your prayers!
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