Hey parents, "get a grip", better yet, "let go"!!

As a young man I was driven by responsibility. The more I got, the better I performed. While this had its good points, as a parent it was not so good. When my son and daughter were young, their mother left us. Now this devastated me for a while and true to form, my response was to SEIZE the responsibility for my children's happiness, responsibility in over drive. While I continued to be messy in my adult relationships, I was a committed parent. What I did not realize was that my kids were being burdened by my well-being, which was driven by whether they were happy or not.

When God moved in my life in 1983 and opened my eyes spiritually, one thing that happened was freedom in my responsibility as a parent. Basically God said, "these are my children, not yours, I'll call you when I need you. Don't you know I love them more than you can ever imagine? Get a grip, let go!!" As my burden for their happiness was released to God and I could trust Him for that, the kids began to get freedom to be what God had designed them to be, without a burden for my happiness.

God used a great experience in their lives to demonstrate this to me. I desired that they have a "spiritual experience" somewhere in their youth or young adult life to draw on throughout their adult life. Mainly I thought about a youth retreat with some "mountain top" experience they could always point to. So I prayed and of course my prayer was so limiting.

Here's what happened over a course of a few years. A few years out of college my son was doing nicely in building his career. He calls one day and says, "dad, I want to take a year off and grow spiritually." What better words could a dad want to hear from his son. So my 'flesh' kicks in to try and use my influence to help him out, after all, I lived in Charlotte, NC - the mecca of Christian ministry. Before I could get very far, he calls and says he is going to spend a year traveling with Josh McDowell as his intern. I said, "wow, how did you do that?" He replied, "I just called him and asked." God then said to me, "see I told you I can handle this way better than you ever could imagine." Instead of a weekend retreat I thought would work well, he was spending a year traveling the world with Josh   :-)

Then there is my daughter. Oh my, how was she going to have that "spiritual experience"? In a totally different process than my vision for her spiritual growth, she was interested in studying in Spain. She was in college and majoring in Spanish. So we began to seek what opportunities existed there for language immersion. Before we could get very far, out of the blue came the opportunity to spend 4 months with YWAM at the Barcelona Olympic youth outreach ministry. Because she was proficient in the language, she immediately became a key person in the planning and support for bringing 2000 young Christians to Barcelona for the 2 weeks of the Olympics to witness in the barrios of Barcelona. Besides the months leading up to the outreach where she experienced the prayer life and miracles of YWAMer's, she spent 2 weeks translating for a South African team. God has such a sense of humor, a little Southern girl from Winthrop University translating the gospel message presented by South African young people in the ghettos of Barcelona. God went to some real extremes for me to get it, He is in control and i can just come along and enjoy His parenting.

So, parents, it's never too late to get a grip and LET GO -  something to ponder ....