When I was pregnant I was afraid of so many things. I was afraid of what people would think of me when they found out I was a single mother. I was afraid to have the baby, afraid of the hospital and the delivery. I was afraid of my water breaking when I was singing in the choir or at the grocery store. I was afraid of being alone.
But, the thing that I never thought about when I was pregnant is what scares me the most now. That my family, that my children will never live lives that honor Jesus.
My oldest son was practically born in the church. He grew up in the nursery, attended Sunday school and children's church, went to a Christian school until 4th grade. One of his first words was preach and Jesus was his best friend. He sang the words to Jesus Loves Me and knew the difference between Jesus music and devil music. He asked to wear a suit on Sundays and fell asleep with his Bible storybook by his side.
He prayed every night for a Daddy and a family, for brothers and sisters and in 1999 I met his stepdad, who was a single father with a daughter my son's age and a son four years younger. I was so thankful that he was getting the Daddy he prayed for and siblings, too. When we married in the summer of 2000, it was with promises of love and God's blessings.
My stepdaughter and stepson got saved and baptized within the first few years of our marriage. They woke up to Veggie Tales on the TV, praise and worship music on the way to anywhere and family devotions around the dining room table each night. When they were with their mom on weekends they would call for my husband to pray with them and we'd pick them up for church.
All of the children got involved in youth group and VBS, mission trips and my stepdaughter confessed to wanting to be a singing missionary veterinarian so she could sing and minister to people and animals in China.
My husband and I were in awe of how God was working and changing in all of our lives. It was refreshing and encouraging to have a blended family with children that wanted to live for the Lord and loved each other.
We added to our family in 2002, moved to a new neighborhood and the oldest children started middle school. And everything shifted.
As our family dynamic changed, the older children began to change as well. They began to stretch and grow in ways that made my momma's heart proud and in ways that made that same heart weep. They were no longer innocent and sheltered from the hardness of the world, but thrust right into it, embracing it at times, pushing their roots aside and taking down new roots in dangerous and damaging territory. The weeds grew right up around them and even though their foundations had been sure in His Word, they began to choose things contrary to what I had prayed and dreamed for them. For what they had prayed and dreamed for themselves.
There was theft, tobacco use/abuse, sneaking out, lies and promiscuity. Events began to spin out of control, fueled by sin and selfishness leaving a path of hurt and destruction that would forever affect our family.
One of the things I had forgotten when I prayed for our blended family to become a functional, growing, spiritually distinct unit is that the older children do not just have the genes of my husband and myself. They also share the DNA of parents that have distorted their values and opinions with selfishness and abandonment. They were encouraged to lie by the other parent, birthdays and holidays were missed, money was used to secure visits and affections.
All of this was damaging and started to peel away the layers of a Godly foundation we had fought so hard to lay and secure for them. But, a person's spirituality is not built on another's and our older children are responsible for their own relationship with their Savior.
My heart is broken over the wayward lives of my adult children, but I can no longer feel like I missed something or could have done something more or better to secure they stayed on a path of righteousness. That is a path they can only keep themselves on or choose to veer off of by their choices and lifestyles.
Daily my prayer is the same for each of them to leave the sin that has beset them and turn their hearts and lives back to a loving Savior Who is graciously waiting for them.
I am still fearful that I may never rejoice in the fact that all of my children walk in the truth, but I am choosing to cling to the hope that God can and still does redeem and restore.
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