When Our Children Choose Their Own Way

One of my biggest surprises in raising four children was discovering that they would not grow up to be little copies of my husband, Gary, and me.

I don’t mean their physical features. I mean their values, beliefs, and choices. Somehow, I thought that if we taught them what mattered to us, they would naturally see life as we did.

Boy, was I wrong.

Am I alone in that? I hardly think so.

God entrusted our children to us, but He gave them free will. We can teach them, guide them, and love them with all our hearts. We cannot make their choices for them. There have been days when I’ve thought life would be much easier if we could!

It comforts me to remember that even the children of a perfect Father can wander. God has never failed as a parent, yet His children still turn away from Him. That doesn’t make a parent’s mistakes unimportant, but it reminds me that a child’s choices are not always a verdict on how that child was raised.

In my parents’ generation, people were often quick to blame the parents when a child went astray. I’ve lived long enough to see how incomplete that judgment can be. I’ve known godly people who came from troubled homes. My daddy was one of them. I’ve also known people raised in loving homes with strong values who chose a very different path.

Gary and I wanted good things for our children. We believed each of them was capable of pursuing an education and a successful career, but those were never our greatest hopes. Whether they became wealthy or lived modestly, we wanted them to be content with their choices and to let the Lord guide their steps.

Above all, we wanted them to know and love Him deeply. We hoped they would share the biblical convictions we taught at home: respect for the law, freedom from addiction, sexual purity, faithfulness in marriage, and a commitment to raise their own children in the faith. We hoped they would be comfortable with the identity God had given them and choose spouses who shared their love for Him.

We did our best to build a home where those values were taught and lived. Still, as our children grew, they made choices of their own. At times, those choices broke our hearts.  We continued to love and pray for them, but we never ‘accepted’ things in their lives that blatantly went against God’s Word.  I think too many Christian parents are falling into that trap of acceptance just to keep a relationship with their children alive.

We can’t teach our children that certain lifestyles are wrong for their entire childhood, then suddenly becoming accepting of it.  It is hypocrisy.  We can still convey love to our children without accepting their sin.

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is OLD he will not depart from it.” I have held on to that verse through many years of parenting. It reminds me to teach my children God’s ways, ground them in faith, and pray for them continually—even after they are grown.

It may sound cliché’, but we can lead them to the Living Water, but we cannot make them drink.

Most of our children stepped away from the Lord’s ways for a season. Gary and I are deeply thankful that we have lived to see three of our four return to the faith we taught them.

We have not given up hope for our fourth child.

We made mistakes as parents, as all parents do. But we loved our children, taught them what we believed to be true, and prayed over them. We trust that what our adult wayward child learned about God is still in his heart, and we pray that he will find his way back.

I emphasized the word old in Proverbs 22:6 for a reason. Some children return to the faith of their youth in their teens or twenties. For others, the journey takes much longer. We may not see the answer to every prayer in our lifetime.

So we keep loving. We keep praying. And we keep holding on to hope.

May God bless every heartbroken parent today and everyday with peace, hope, and reassurance.

Blessings!

Sheila-Ann