WHEN YOUR CHILD WALKS AWAY
CHAPTER FIVE
Faithful Parenting in a New Season When your child was young, you led them in ways that feel almost quaint now. You led by instruction: you taught them who God is and how to tell the truth and what prayer is. You led by structure: you told them when to eat, when to sleep, when practice started, when to make the bed. And you led by correction: sometimes legalistically, sometimes compassionately, always imperfectly. What do you do now — when you are no longer parenting a child over whom you have that kind of control? The shift Your parental role is not over. It has shifted. You are no longer the primary authority structure in their life, and trying to be will only burn the bridge faster. You are now a faithful witness. You are an intercessor. You are a waiting father on the porch. The shift is from controlling to commending. From managing to ministering. From setting the rules of their life to speaking truth into a life they are now setting the rules of. This feels like a loss. It is not. It is the same calling — faithfulness — expressed in a new form.
“Your role is not over. It has shifted — from controlling to commending.”
Two temptations to resist Two temptations sit on either side of you in this season, and both will ruin you if you give in. The first is withdrawal. “I just can’t deal with this anymore.” You stop calling. You stop visiting. You let the distance do what the disagreement started. This is understandable, and it is devastating. The second is capitulation. You water down the truth because you cannot stand to push them any further away. You stop saying what God has said about sin because you do not want to lose them. This, too, is understandable, and this, too, is devastating — in a different direction.
Word of Life Fellowship • 13
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