Letting them fall

Our children…with their own thoughts, ideas and opinions, hold arrows in their hands they know nothing about. My regenerated mind understands that my children have a life to live that the Lord has set before them…whether they come to Christ or not was preplanned before the earth was formed, whether they are honest and upright, responsible and self-sufficient, or whether they find a path that takes them places I don’t even want to think about- it’s all in the Lord’s hands and He’s already mapped their course.

My role in that is to raise them, love them, teach them about the Lord, and hopefully steer them in the right direction knowing all the while that their path is set. When I was a kid I can remember my mother and grandmother discussing people they knew, talking about their kids and how they were good kids or bad kids, questioning how a parent like that wound up with a kid like that.

Never once did I hear them talk about how that child’s life was set before it was born. I can clearly read in Scripture that it’s so and today I know that a person’s path was planned by the Lord.

But knowing it doesn’t make it any easier when my child is hurting or in trouble. It doesn’t make it any easier when my child is trying to find her place in life and rejecting the things I value. It doesn’t make it any easier when I see my child doing something I learned from experience only causes heartache and I want to show them…to tell them…to avoid that but knowing, and experiencing, that there’s nothing I can do but try and tell them the danger that road leads to, try and guide them back to where I want them to be, and let them know I’m here for them no matter what.

Because the Lord has a plan for them. Their course is set just as mine is. Part of my journey is to raise the children He entrusted to me. Through them I have been changed, I’ve grown and matured. Part of their journey is to experience those trials and heartaches for themselves…so they can grow and mature. But letting go isn’t easy. Watching them stumble and fall isn’t easy. Figuring out when to pick them up, dust them off and send them out again isn’t easy. Neither is figuring out when it’s time to let them fall so they can pick themselves up.

When my babies were first learning to walk I used to hold their hands as they took those first stumbling steps, ready to catch them before they could fall. When they were walking good I used to hold one hand to keep them out of the road (or just because they were walking beside me) and I’ve caught them many a time as they stumbled, that little hand in mine gave me enough leverage to save them from a skinned knee.

When they learned to ride a bike I held on to the bike or walked with my hands on either side of them ready to grab them if they fell. When they first learned to climb the ladder to the big slide I kept my hands on their waist, steadying them as they climbed, giving them the security to take that step, and ready to catch them at the first sign of trouble.

In all those things I was there to stop their hurts before they happened.

But as they grew…in other ways…I had to let them fall. When they kept climbing on something time and time again, when telling them they were going to fall didn’t stop them, when getting onto them for it didn’t faze them, it was time to let them learn for themselves. When my girls discovered that climbing trees was fun, I had to let them climb knowing I couldn’t hold onto them. And when they fell…I patched them up and let them go again, both of us a little wiser.

It is my nature as a parent to protect my children. That’s what parents do. We stop their falls. We catch them when they stumble. We steady them as they climb. He hold onto them when they need us to. And we let them go when we have to.

Somehow though, doing that is easier when they’re little than when they get older. Catching my son as he falls off his bike is easier to do when he’s two than when he’s ten. Knowing when to cushion them from hurts is easier to see when they’re little than when they’re teens and trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in life.

Teaching them responsibility when they’re six and learning to wash dishes is easier than teaching them responsibility when they’re grown and on their own but still need us to pick them up when they fall. When they’re teenagers they need us to give them freedoms but they still need the security of the boundaries they’ve had as kids. When they’re grown they want us to treat them like adults but they want to run to us to fix their hurts like they’re toddlers.

My one year old grandson will pull up on furniture, he walks around it. He’s learning, taking those first steps. But when you lift him to his feet ready to hold his hands and help him move to the next phase of walking he picks up his feet and refuses to stand. It’s cute and sweet but it at the same time I know he’s avoiding a stage of life he must experience. It is also a lot like what the older children do as they seek their own way, as they prepare for and move into adulthood. They walk when they want to, take steps when it suits them, but let us try and help and they refuse to put their feet on the floor.

There is a poem I read years and years ago before I had my first child. For some reason that poem struck me as something special. I won’t normally put poems or anything other than Scripture in my blog posts but for this post I’m going to make an exception. But before I do, I must explain that I know nothing about the poet, nothing about his beliefs or lifestyle. This is simply a poem that I liked in my teen years and that came to me as I was writing this post. Since it seems fitting and I saw nothing objectionable in it when I read through it I am going to include it in this post.

With that I’m going to leave you with the words of Khalil Gibran:

 

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.