When You are Concerned About Your Child’s Future

I settled down into my chair half-heartedly.  I was there to learn about high school, to learn about planning for my kids’ future and a vision for the years ahead.  But my oldest is only in sixth grade, so most days the need to plan for high school doesn’t feel urgent or immediate.

I was at this meeting simply to listen and learn.

At the same time, it seems like just yesterday I was cradling that sixth grader in my arms, and then fretting over options for Kindergarten.  If I’ve learned anything in this mothering gig, it is that the future comes more quickly that we think it will.

 

So I planned to take this meeting in stride, to glean knowledge, perspective and slowly begin formulating a vision.

As the speaker discussed the value of education in the high school years, as she touched on the study of rhetoric and leadership and college prep, my heart began beating a little faster.  So many things.  So many important things.

I returned home with a mind full of questions and proceeded to spill them all out on my husband.

What is our plan for high school?  Should we pursue college credit in the high school years if we think our kids will seek advanced degrees?  What about trade schools for certain career paths?  Should we dive fully into Latin or switch to a modern foreign language?  How do we uncover our kids’ gifts and their talents and the very best career path given their strengths?  How do we set them out on the right path and determine the best route for their entire lives…tonight?

My husband responded as he typically does when all of my motherly concern comes out in a torrid rash of questions.  He nodded a little, he listened a lot, he raised his eyebrows and said “well, I don’t think we have to figure all of this out tonight.”

Hmph.

In one sentence he exposes my greatest weakness as a mom.

I want to figure it all out.  I need to figure it all out.  Now.

 

But his slowing challenges me.

I say that I trust God.  And I do.  But I have parameters on that.  See, I’m a can do kind of girl, which too often flies directly in the face of the idea that God is leading me.  Someway, somehow, I get it all twisted and I think that if I try hard enough, work hard enough, plan hard enough, I really can figure this all out, make sure it all works beautifully.  And in that moment I realize, I’m not all that different from Eve, am I?  I don’t really want to trust God; deep down inside I want to be God.

I hate even admitting that, but my planning and preparing, my figuring and fretting over my kids’ future, all expose the truth of my heart.  This is a riddle I want to solve.  This is a puzzle I want to complete.

Sure I trust God will the small things, but do I really trust God with my children’s future?

The question begs an answer.

 

He has told me that His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).  But I don’t want weakness.  I don’t always want to trust.  In my attempt to do this job well, I trade His power being made perfect in me, for my own power.

Didn’t Eve teach me anything at all?  What a horrible trade I’m making.

And so from a heart that loves her children wildly, from a heart that so badly wants to get it all right, a heart that sometimes has a stranglehold, a death grip, on the things that were simply entrusted to my care, I realize the bravest thing I can do is offer it all back.  What if I bravely offered all the things I’m holding on to so tightly, to The One who is holding me?

The Bravest Thing a Mother Can Do

What if the bravest thing I can do as a mother is to release my grip and trust His?

What if the bravest thing I can do is ask Him for the grace to lead these children well?  Ask Him to lead me, trust Him to lead me, as I lead them?

What if the bravest thing I can do is seek Him for direction, the very next step, each and every step, one step at a time?

 

The bravest thing we can do, friends, is trust that God loves these children even more that we do.  Trust that He has plans for our kids and for their future (Jeremiah 29:11-13).  And trust that He will gently lead us as we lead them (Isaiah 40:11).  This is brave.

 

So what about all the planning?

Don’t hear me wrong, friends.  There is nothing wrong with planning and preparing, nothing wrong with learning and seeking and discovering.  But in order to lead my children well, in order to lead them bravely, my heart, my will, must always be properly submitted to Christ.  When I mess that up, when I usurp that proper positioning, my plans become control, my preparation becomes manipulation and I gradually land myself in the very spot Eve was.  Hungering for just a little more control, a little more knowledge, a little more power.

So for now high school prep looks like prayer.  We’re praying that God will show us the route for these kids He’s given us.  We’re praying that He will reveal to us the path for each and every one of them.  And we’re praying for a faith that trusts solely in Him, each step of the way.