I tell this post that it will offend many of my dear friends.
I claim that it is the enemy trying to encourage me to stir up controversies and I shoo it away.
I insist that there is no useful reason to share these thoughts but the thoughts persist and I am going to share them. If for no other reason than maybe they will quiet down once they are out of my head and resting in the blogosphere.
Because I was guilty and nobody shared this hard truth with me as a younger mother. I wish I had known.
THERE IS NO FORMULA FOR RAISING GODLY CHILDREN.
NONE.
NADA.
ZILCH.
ZERO.
WALAT.
There. I said it. You can stop reading now or you can continue and hear me out.
My husband and I raised our children in the very best way we knew how. We used a formula from our favorite authors and inspired by other families who appeared to have Godly children. And here is how it looked:
We took "Growing Kids God's Way".
We read "Shepherding a Child's Heart". Often.
We read "Shepherding a Child's Heart". Often.
We homeschooled. (The Biggie)
I stayed home from the time our second child was born.
We did not allow our children to watch shows we deemed inappropriate.
We prayed with and for our children daily.
We had family devotions.
We were quiverfull and trusted God with the size of our family - which resulted in two biological and four internationally-adopted children.
We allowed only "courting" and no "dating".
We worked hard to make sure our children were one another's best friends and kept outside relationships as secondary.
We ate dinner together almost every night.
We made our children use the "interrupt rule" (hand on a parent when they needed to interrupt our talking to someone else).
We made sure they asked forgiveness when they wronged another person instead of just tossing out "I"m sorry" halfheartedly. . .
I'll stop there but you know me or others like me. You either ARE like me or you tried to be and felt you fell so very short because of mitigating factors like your husband not allowing you to homeschool or not being open to adoption or . . .
I worshiped that formula. There were MANY times I judged other families who did not follow one or more aspects of that formula. Most of the time, I trusted the formula more than I trusted my Heavenly Father, who gave me my children and loves them more than I ever could.
When my children were 4 and 6, I was fairly certain I knew everything about Godly parenting and was doing a bang-up job - even with one hand tied behind my back.
But something happened that shattered any notion of my beloved formula being foolproof. Something so shocking and heart rending that I was left, mouth agape, holding my tattered copy of "Shepherding" and wondering what on Earth had just happened.
They grew up.
My little treasures who hung onto my every word began to question things I said. They began to meet people outside our homeschool bubble. People with opinions and beliefs that were different from ours. They began to ask me hard questions that "because the Bible says so" was not a satisfactory answer to. Questions with "why" and "prove it" sandwiched in. They began to put their pinky toes into waters that has always been forbidden. They wanted to separate "real" from "imagined" and although I know and knew in the deepest parts of my being that the God they grew up knowing and loving IS ultimate truth, I could not FORCE them to know this.
And I was heartbroken and terrified.
I began to curse the formula. I undertook the arduous task of rethinking every parenting decision ever made by my husband and I and trying to figure out where we went "wrong". . . where we diverged from the REAL, TRUE, TRULY, REALLY, SUPER TRUE formula. And I made the wanderings and questioning of my children all about me, forgetting one tiny detail that was a game changer.
We are all sinners. Me. My children. The "perfect" friends with their "perfect" families.
All.
All of our righteousness is like filthy rags.
No one seeks after God. All have turned away.
He is God. I am not.
He is God. I am not.
He is jealous for the hearts and affections of my children.
Total Depravity of man trumped by the
Irresistible Grace of a loving God
Once saved/ Always Saved
Once saved/ Always Saved
So I share this in hopes of encouraging you, striving mothers. You who have a formula that you truly believe will result in your children following HARD after God all the days of their lives. I don't know if the phrase "the formula doesn't work" will encourage you but I pray it FREES you.
Yes, point your children to Jesus.
Yes, guard their hearts.
Yes, monitor their friendships and the things they set before their eyes.
But know in your inner most being that their walk with the Lord is NOT about you and does NOT depend on you.
Some of the most Godly women I know were raised in homes without a single Believer.
Some of the most unGodly people I know were raised in Christian homes.
If I could go back . . . well, that's another post for another time. And I would make a lot of the same choices as a mother. But those choices would be filtered through the knowledge that they are not an insurance policy, guaranteeing Godly children. They are choices made by the desire to be a good steward of the time I had with my kids before they grew up and began sifting through their beliefs and trying to separate the precious stones from fool's gold.
And then I remember that I wandered and questioned, too. I took a Philosophy course at my secular college and studied Kant and Descartes and existentialism and relative truth and I began to question the faith of my childhood.
And I came back stronger.
Because He is TRUTH.
And lies, over time, erode, exposing paper bones.
The Holy Spirit in me spoke a quiet truth into the noise of my doubt.
So, if you, mothers, are willing to learn from the life of another, please listen up. The word of God is a solid foundation. Do not fear for the hearts of your children. Do not trust the formula. Trust the one who created and entrusted those children to you. Trust HIS word.
