Loving Prodigals

 

Hello dear ones.

Put on a cup of tea.....this may get long, but

I feel it's an important post.

After sharing my last post and Stormie Omartian's video, I wanted to talk about prayer and the fact that God may not always answer prayer in the way we plan and

in our timing.

I remember feeling hopeless and helpless many, many times through my parenting journey. My children have not been perfect angels, and they were not quiet compliant children. They also had inexperienced parents who were not raised in homes that taught us the way of Christ.

Today, we are living in a society whose foundations are nigh well destroyed.

The past couple of generations have been crumbling from within.

The results are clearly devastating.

I feel for young people today who are raising children and searching for answers 

It hurts to realize you may be doing things wrong as a parent or to realize that you simply do not have any idea what to do that will help your children.

There are also those frightening times when others, who have better results, look at you and your child as if they know you are a failure.

I've lived through this.

Unloving self righteous parents can be a pain when a mama is struggling with her child who bites or hits or throws temper tantrums, or they grow up and have problems as teens and young adults.

I remember often feeling helpless and wishing I could just disappear in a hole.

When my daughter was small she was a handful. I had a friend who had a naturally quiet child. One day my friend and her sweet child left after a visit. My little girl was crying in bed that night and I asked why she was crying. She said she didn't want to die and burn up in the flames of hell for ever and ever. I asked her why she would think that and she told me my friend told her that in private after she had (once again) bitten my friends daughter. I assured her that she was safe from hell fire and tucked her in.

Yes...... raising children can be painful.

I often feared my lack of knowledge would result in failure and friends like this cemented my fear of failure.

I can assure you that my sweet daughter has grown and matured with time and God's leading in our lives.....and she no longer bites, pulls hair or punches other kids in the nose.......yes, she did all that and more when she was small😬

All of our children are growing and maturing because the Lord has been and will continue to be faithful.

I was not raised in a Christian home. I didn't have examples in my personal family of how mature adults function and raise a family.

I did have grandparents and relatives that were good role models and I gleaned many insights by observation, but the Lord had much to teach me.

I shared Stormie Omartians video yesterday, and hoped it would bless and encourage, but I realize that many good, praying parents have to wait sometimes many years before seeing prayer answered...and sometimes prayer is not answered in the same way God answered prayer for Stormie. 

Sometimes God's delays are long and painful.

May I speak with you about that?

I know some things about years of prayer and waiting, not only in my immediate family, but in extended family and with friends families.

I know what it is to watch and wait for years and still believe in spite of not realizing an answer yet......I emphasize the word yet..... because I do believe He answers in His time and in His way.

Most parents love their children deeply.

Most parents do their best.

But with the foundations of our society nigh broken and crumbling for a couple of generations now, there are many sorrows in families.

We've experienced and are still experiencing sorrows in our own lives.

Children may make choices that a parent can see will clearly bring pain and even bring discipline from the Lord.

This doesn't make one a 'bad' parent.

And it doesn't mean prodigal children are bad people.

Sometimes all the nurture, guidance, love and teaching doesn't stop a child from choosing a path we know will end up bringing hurt and leading our loved one further from God.

I've known parents that I thought were excellent, nurturing and godly role models who had confused rebellious children.

There are more influences in our children's lives than just us.

And sometimes children decide to leave the narrow path. 

It's a choice they're free to make.

As Francis Schaeffer told his grandchild who wanted to make choices that might bring trouble, "It's your freedom...it's your terrible freedom."

All of our loved ones are allowed this terrible" freedom."

God has permitted them to choose between good and evil.

He allows them to choose Him or the world.

We can raise them to our best ability, but at the end of the day, the choices are theirs to make.

It's a God given freedom.

We have no right to force adults into our way of thinking.

We can reason and pray with them, but they have the right from God to choose.

And our hearts go with them as they choose.

As grandma told me....."to have a child is to forever have your heart walking outside your own body."

Or as one dear heart said.... you're only as happy as your most unhappy child.

Where your child goes, your heart goes. 

I used to say....have children, they'll take you places you never dreamed of going!

Can I get an Amen?

Every mama heart knows these things.

Children are individuals.

They have free will and freedom to choose.

And this also includes any person we love.

I watched my own mother, father, brothers and extended family reap harsh trials and shed bitter tears for years and years and still keep  choosing sin.....it wore me and broke my heart.

I too have sinned. I'm a sinner saved by grace with many a grief over my rebellion earlier in life.

So......what can we do as we look at the sin in the lives of those we deeply cherish?

Pray.

Fast and pray.

Cry.....pour out your heart to Jesus because He loves you and can bring peace to your mind so you can rest.

Seek a friend to share the burden.

Eat well.

Exercise.

Find reasons to smile and be grateful.

Release.

Release.

Release.

Put the loved one in Jesus' care.

Do this until you've gained peace.

Reach out in love to the one sinning.

If your love is rejected, be kind and patient.

Keep reaching and praying.

Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife, wrote a wonderful book titled "Prodigals And Those Who Love Them."

She shared this thought, "We mother's must take care of the possible, and trust God with the impossible."

She had some who wandered also.

She reminds us in the following poem that God was the very best parent, yet, His children also rebelled...........

They felt good eyes upon them

And shrank within - undone;

Good parents had good children,

And they - a wandering one.

The good folk never meant

To act smug or condemn

But having prodigals

Just "wasn't done" with them.

Remind them gently Lord how You

Have trouble with your children

Too.

The pain suffered as we watch our loved ones sin and reap consequences can only be healed as we fully trust Jesus.

The pain can be excruciating. 

Only Jesus can heal this type of sorrow in a heart.

One essential help for me was, and is, to wash my mind in God's Word and sing hymns to comfort my heart.

No person can be the balm that Jesus is when we are in deep pain.

Many a times I have gone someplace to be quiet and alone with Jesus until His presence calmed the pain beating in my mind and heart.

Psalm 23 says it best.

Jesus understands mama hearts.

He knows them best because He created them.

I remember a story about my great grandmother.

Her family was coming back to the barn on a hay wagon. The children were riding on top on the tall hill of hay in the wagon laughing and having fun. Her daughter fell off, was run over by the wagon and died.

My grandmother, her other daughter, recalls her mama sitting many a day alone under a tree in the yard with an open Bible on her lap seeking God's comfort.......and eventually it came.

Another woman told me that during the great depression her daddy died and the children and mama were left poor and needy. She said Mama's solution was to share God's Word through the day with the children and to keep the family Bible open on the table so they could look to the Word for strength, hope and comfort through each day 

I loved that story so much that I asked my husband to build me a Bible holder so we can keep His Word before our eyes and look at it for hope each day also.

I need His hope daily.

I too have loved ones that are not yet gathered into the fold.

I need the hope of God's trusted Word as a balm to my own heart not just because I'm a mama, but because I live in a world gone far from the Lord. 

There is no comfort in this world except from the Lord.

There is great comfort and rest in quietly sitting at Jesus feet. 

Allow Him to minister to your heart as you rest quietly in His presence. 

Take heart sweet friend.

God almighty is still on the throne.

He still answers prayer.

Our children or loved ones may wander....as we once did... but they will always be ours and they need to know they can call on us anytime......