“It cannot be that the Son of these Tears should Perish”

I am a single parent raising four children… I’ve made this introduction of myself for nearly 19 years. My children are no longer infants, but teenagers who are becoming young adults, which means that a tug and war exist in my home. Half of the time my children can’t stand me or my rules and all of the time, I desperately tried to control their lives and make sure they turned out right. I’ve recently learned through teenage rebellion accompanied by many tears, much reading and prayer that I was wrong in both instances.

It is not my responsibility to control the lives of my children or burden myself with the inexhaustible task to make sure they turn out right. I can only train them up in the right way that they should go, which I have done, of course not without mistakes. And remind them to choose a path that will make good use of this training.

From the very beginning, I knew my children were a gift from God to me.  As a teenager, I felt I had no deep connection to anyone or anything and longed for a link to someone or something. My mother was in my life only for a short time. At seven-years-old, I watched her shot dead at the hands of my stepfather who took his own life after doing the deed of taking hers. My children and their lives were the “someone and something” that would love me and that I would love unconditionally. They were a gift indeed, but the only problem was I thought they belonged to me. I didn’t realize that they still belonged to God and He entrusted them to me only for a time. And so in my ignorance, my children became my life, my reason to live and my attachment in this world. It seems that from the beginning I’ve been more a burden to them than they’ve ever been to me.

You might ask the question, so whose job is it to control the lives of my teenage children and make sure they turn out right?

This responsibility belongs to God. It is what I call God’s property. I have tread on this property that I’ve had no legal right over. Unfortunately, I have tried to be God in the lives of my children and I have been trespassing for nearly 19 years. It is unimaginable that the love we have for our children can actually hurt them in the long run, but it can if that love is preventing their growth.

My teenagers are in the process of moving away from me. They spend less and less time with me and want more time to spend with friends. The conversation that they so easily have with their friends or mentor, I have to squeeze out of them.  Therapists call this, “development individuating,” when the teenager prepares to leave the nest and find their own identity in the world and from my perspective it’s a hurtful process, which leaves me feeling empty without them. Is it my teenagers fault? No, it’s entirely my problem, not theirs.

The most difficult and hurtful thing about this process of relinquishing control is that when our children make not so good decisions we as parents must helplessly watch them suffer the consequence of their choice. But are we helpless?  I am convinced that it is not a position of powerless by standing that we have as parents to our teenager children as we relinquish control. We still have prayer, which avails much.  It is true that into every decision, our children take us and we feel the consequence whether good or bad.  But I am encouraged by St. Augustine when he wrote that “as you live, it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish.” These were words that were spoken to Monica, St. Augustine’s mother, by a Bishop in the church before Augustine’s conversion to Christianity. Monica travailed in prayer and sought out help for her son from the leading authority in the church. She thought if only the Bishop would speak to the boy, but the Bishop refused because he said the boy was unteachable. However, after witnessing Monica’s tears, the Bishop proclaimed those words that seemed to Monica to ring clearly from the mouth of God himself, “…it cannot be that the sons of these tears should perish.” Through Monica’s relentless prayer, indeed he didn’t! Be encouraged, our prayers are availing much!