The battles our kids fight in their souls travel with them wherever they go.
They take up spiritual space in our homes.
They seem invisible but bump up against our peace and create confusion we can’t define. Good grief, sometimes we can't even identify it.
When we’ve raised them in Truth from a young age, it’s easy to forget that they have to make daily choices against the fear satan peddles, just like we do.
I was raised in a conservative Christian home where we toed the line and appeared (even to ourselves) that all was well. In fact, all was the very opposite of well.
We believed every red-lettered word and had stellar theology. In fact, we even lined them up with Five Points or called them Spiritual Laws and offered them to strangers on the street. Our beliefs were the answer to every question.
But somehow, in the face of all those answers, we forgot we were human. It was as if our knowledge about God protected us from our need for him.
Any weakness, physical or emotional, was seen as spiritual weakness.
So we learned not to need.
We locked down our emotions.
We lived as strangers, even to ourselves.
Sometimes our faith, or knowledge about faith, squeezes out connection to our emotions and unspoken thoughts about God and life.
What I mean by that is this, we feel and think unsettling things but instead of taking time to process them and bring them into the light of God’s truth, we quickly shove them away with a scripture about trust or belief and just hope they’ll disappear.
This is what the enemy wants us to do and he wants our kids to do it too.
He tricks us into sidestepping our humanity while we hope that Jesus will just fix it before life gets too messy.
But instead Jesus invites us to identify with him. Be crucified with him.
Be risen again with him as he heals our hearts from the inside out, one day at a time.
So we face our own spiritual battles and our kids face theirs and when the two collide, we wonder what went wrong? And why we can’t get it together. Or at least I do.
As mothers, leaders, and contenders for their hearts, the spiritual and emotional weight we sense in our homes often feels too heavy.
Because it is.
And so we lay it down again.
We offer our kids up again.
We speak truth out loud in prayer.
We thank God for the privilege of walking shoulder to shoulder with his son or daughter who just happens to be our son or daughter too.
We stay fully present to our emotions as we trust God with them.
We remind our hearts that we are not alone.
We release our need to fix and control our kids. Instead, we take a ‘palms up’ posture.
We love with all our might.
We hand every desired outcome to Jesus in belief that just as he has walked us into grace, he will be faithful to walk with our kids as well.
And we take our rightful authority over fear and unbelief in Jesus name.
Hebrews 4:16
Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].