Parenting as
stewardship
Driving through my neighborhood to work this morning I
observed several mothers and children walking to the nearby elementary
school. As I watched these parents, I
wondered how they feel about those children, and the natural and good desires
we all share to see our kids thrive, learn, and grow into adulthood.
That desire to see our kids flourish can result in a sense
of ownership over those children – a desire to control them and make sure they
are becoming or become the sort of people that we want them to be. Much of that inclination is very healthy as
it stimulates us to provide for our kids.
But at some point the natural inclination can become a sense of
ownership or entitlement that is neither legitimate nor healthy.
“Our” children somehow do not really belong to us as
parents, even though we “bring them into the world.” We are responsible for their care, to love
them, nourish and nurture them, teach them, discipline and guide them, and help
launch them into adulthood, but ultimately they are independent beings and not
ours to keep, possess, or control.
Rather than owners, parents are more like stewards of the
master’s property. God owns us all, our
kids included. Parents are stewards of a
sacred trust when we are privileged to bring kids into the world and attempt to
parent or steward them toward adulthood. But ultimately these little independent beings
do not belong to us, but rather in some great mystery, we all belong to God.
All that said, as parents who have “lost” a child to an
untimely death when that 18 year old child was just entering into a remarkable
phase of manhood, we struggle with our grief, our lack of control over Daniel’s
destiny, and ultimately the fact that our stewardship or involvement in
Daniel’s life on earth was cut much too short from our hearts’ perspective.
October 22, 2008
Unanswered prayer
When I hear someone share how God answered their prayer, I
am immediately thrown back to Daniel’s bedside in Missoula
Not only do we feel like God abandoned us in our moment of significant need, we also naturally feel like we somehow did not do something right – we didn’t make the right request, or worse yet, didn’t really believe God could pull off the miracle we needed and that our lack of faith somehow became a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I realize that God may have given us an answer, but it is not the answer I want, so it makes it very hard to fathom and accept.
October 8, 2008
What did Jesus do
(and say)?
A few years back, a trendy question in the Christian pop
culture and beyond was, “what would Jesus do?”
As I muddle down my grieving path, I am drawn to asking a similar
question – what did Jesus do and say when facing loss in his time on earth?
The most striking text seems to be in the Gospels when it is
recorded that Jesus uttered these words – “Father: why have you forsaken me?” Jesus seems to have felt forsaken – abandoned
by God in that moment of extreme personal suffering – physical, mental, emotional,
and seemingly even spiritual. He did not
mince words or sugarcoat his despair. He
felt abandoned – left out – forgotten about by the Father who sent him to earth
on this mission.
As a grieving father, there are times when I feel forsaken,
abandoned, and forgotten by God. Somehow
it helps to know that Jesus had this experience as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment