Should I have let her watch that movie? What do I do when she wants to start going on dates or wearing makeup to school?
Are all these Johnny Cash songs he's obsessed with going to turn him into a whiskey drinking shoe shine boy who thinks its ok to shoot a man in Reno just to watch them die?
How will they handle the first offer to have a drink, take a puff, or God forbid, to try just one small hit off a needle?
What will they say the first time they hear, "Church is just a place for judgmental hypocrites!" or better yet, what will they do when they realize that the church really is a place for hypocrites. When they figure out that hypocrites, thieves, and child molesters are all sitting near them in the pews. Will they walk away from her in disgust? Will they say, "What's the point? I'm done with church!"
What happens when they start to think that God is not listening?
Will they decide that the cosmos is too big for God? Will they believe the lie that it's either Darwin or Genesis, but not both?
What if they watch someone they love suffer and die?
What if one of them suffers? or dies?
These are the questions I have asked God at least a million times. These are the worries that fight for a front row seat in my mind almost every day.
There is a story in the Hebrew Bible about a Shunammite woman who is faithful to God and shows kindness to the prophet Elisha. Elisha tells the woman that as a reward for her faithfulness, she will give birth to a son. One day, her God-given son becomes ill and dies suddenly. Instead of falling into a pit of despair, this woman gets on a donkey and goes to find Elisha. When Elisha offers to send his servant to try to heal her already dead son, the scripture says she "grabbed Elisha by the feet" and demanded he go to her son himself. So Elisha goes to her house, lays on top of her son's dead body "his mouth on the boy's mouth, eyes on his eyes, hands on his hands " and prays for God to raise the boy back to life. My favorite part of this story is that the Bible says "the boy sneezed seven times and then opened his eyes."
When the Shunammite woman grabbed hold of Elisha's feet, she was saying to God, "I will not let go until you deliver my child from death. You aren't getting rid of me without answering my prayer." I believe this woman is every mother who has ever prayed to God, "Deliver my child from..." (you fill in the blank).
She is me when I fall on my knees early in the morning before my little ones start their day and plead to Jesus, "Just watch over them today. Be with them wherever they go. Protect what they hear, what they see, and what they do."
She is my mother who certainly prayed me through my teen years and beyond.
She is my grandmother who could be found at any hour of the day or night calling loudly for God to deliver someone's child from some type of sickness, addiction, or sin.
She is you when you cry out to heaven for your own child to be healed, protected, or just brought home.
When mothers pray, we are grabbing hold of Jesus' feet and refusing to let go.
But this is a hard and painful truth-
If the only thing we do is pray God's protection over our children, we are falling short by a mile and then some.
"The women were frightened and yet very happy,
as they hurried from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples.
Suddenly Jesus met them and greeted them.
They went near him, held on to his feet, and worshiped him.”
The first people to witness the risen Christ were women. What did they do? They fell down and grabbed hold of his feet! They would not let go of Jesus until they had a chance to worship him. These were the women who had likely washed his feet every day as they waited on Jesus and the other disciples. His feet were as familiar to them as my children's feet are to me. I wonder if they were trying to make sure he was not an apparition but was truly alive again, flesh and blood, dusty feet and all.
When we pray, we are also the women who first saw the resurrected Christ. We hold onto his feet as if to say, "I will not let you go until I have worshipped you. I will hold onto your dusty feet until I know that I know that I know that you are alive again."
Here is where my heart has been sitting these last few weeks. I wrestle with the instinct to shelter my children from every bad thing that's out there while at the same time knowing that the world will catch up to them eventually. What most parents don't realize is that their children need Jesus, not Christian values. They need to know God, not rules. When we focus all of our energy on teaching our children to "guard their hearts" are we sending them a message that says "don't wander too far, you might not make it back." Instead shouldn't we be telling them, "You are the lost sheep that God will always go find. There is no place you can go, no mistake you can make that is too much for God's grace."
If there is one thing I am sure of as a mother, it is this: all of creation is broken and marred by sin and no matter what I do and how hard I try, my children are also part of this broken messed up world. They will know sin and death and suffering and there is nothing I can do to stop it. They will doubt and question and will likely even turn away from God for a season. Most of us have and I don't expect my children to be a any different. This realization, that my mistakes are there just waiting to be made by them, is what sends me to my knees in prayer more often than not.
How should I pray for them? Do I plead for my children or praise God for the hope that is theirs in Christ?
The cross, the tomb, the resurrection and the forgiveness of sins were for their sins, too. My children are part of God's redemption story, too.
Is my sheltering really just doubt in disguise? Doubt that God can redeem my children without my help? Doubt that God can do for them what was done for me?
The truth is that God will redeem them in spite of all my best efforts.
Mothers, this is what I believe: When we pray for our children, we have to use both hands. With one hand, like the Shunamitte woman, we must grab hold of Jesus' feet and plead deliverance for our children. But with the other hand we must hold onto the feet of our resurrected Lord, and rejoice that death, even our children's death, has been defeated. This is the already-but-not-yet thing we do for our children. We fall prostrate before the Lord, day in and day out. We lift our children up in prayer and praise God that their redemption story has already been written, even if we don't know the ending. We do all of this as we hold on tight to the feet of Jesus with both hands.
With both hands, we petition and we praise. We hold on tight and we know that there is no letting go until our daughters or our sons are sitting there beside us, holding fast to His feet, too.
