My Strength & My Shield / psm28:7

23 - The Power of Knowing

At times, there's absolutely nothing I can do to prevent my child from stepping into the fire. Fire is a part of life as a Christian and when you commit to raising your children in Christ, you're committing them to a life of fires. 

Some are small while others are huge. Size is irrelevant. No parent wants to lead their child up to the furnace and in the next breath say, "Jump in." But you have to. Like the process of refining gold to perfection, it takes fire. 

The power of knowing comes into play when your child seeks your guidance. Getting a half dozen consecutive text messages that are at their maximum length and filled with a sudden onslaught of fear about circumstances beyond my control scares the crap out of me. I don't have any great knowledge or wisdom to pass along to my child to tell her how to work through these things. And the very fact that I don't want her to encounter these issues is even worse. "Just come home, sweetie. Don't go anywhere for the rest of your life. Let me do everything for you, and it'll all be okay just like when you were a little girl - when Mama could fix everything with a kiss and a prayer and a Barbie Band-Aid." Oh, if it were still that simple! 

The problem is... it's not. And there are times when it's downright scary. So I respond via text with silence at first, reminding myself that I can only do so much from here while she's there. So who can do something in the distance that separates us? Hmmm. That's a no brainer. 

That's where I found myself, so that's where I started. In all things - in all the stresses, worries, challenges, friendships, hopes, dreams, successes and failures (need I go on), I have to give it to God first. Amazingly, that's when my fingers take on a life of their own... when I did just what I advised my child to do. God, how do I answer her to help her with all that she's feeling and experiencing? How do I help her through these fires that are lapping at her? That's when I realize, I don't. I put God in the center of the fire where my child can fix her eyes on Him as she steps into the flames - where she can see Him waiting to take her hand to provide her with safe passage through it. 

Eight very long text messages later where I've shared everything I can to help her with each fire, she says, "Thanks, Mom. That really helped." And she's off. Her heart's lighter, and the fire doesn't seem as hot as it did at first. And I'm thankful that in her one follow-up text, she mentions that through her tears and prayers to God the night before when all the fires were ignited at once, they were also extinguished as she cried out in prayer to Him, and He took her burdens. 

You realize just how helpless you are as a parent in times like this, and you realize how thankful you are that you provided a small amount of kindling to the faith that God ignited in your child. While I can't always be there during every moment of my child's life, I know God can be. I know He will be. 

Lord, thank you that there is power in knowing you are always there. 

(Note to my Sweet Girl...God often shows us His answer in the small prayers, so that you can have confidence that He's working on the big ones you talked with Him about the night before. He will use anything to show you He's with you, He loves you and He's heard the prayers of your heart. He might even use something as insignificant as a bag of Doritos. But will you ever look at them again without recalling how He used them? Haha! That's way cool!) 

He answered their prayers, because they trusted in him. (1 Chronicles 5:20)