I am struggling to find peace in parenting a 19 year old who is struggling to have independence. I admit, we live a pretty darn conservative life and it can be a challenge to allow him to make choices that don’t fit within my realm of “good”.
For instance, we don’t do sleep overs. Well, he has been to college and been “on his own” for 3 months. So now he is home and wanting to sleep over somewhere. So, yes we need to shift and allow more freedom. But it is scary. (There is a much bigger story underneath this, but I don’t need to divulge all the details. Suffice it to say, it is a challenge.)
I talked to one dear friend who has gone through this with a child and she reassured me, “It is time to let go and let him make his own mistakes. It is your job to just love him right now.” We came up with 3 basic rules for living at home. I feel good about them. But still hard to let go of certain things.
I talked to another friend today and she was asking what I was afraid of. I listed my things. One was that maybe God will hold me accountable for his choices. So she asked me, what would that look like, if you stood before God and He was holding you accountable for your 19 year olds choices. I saw that he wouldn’t, that He would say, “Well done. You are just to love him.”
She told me to step into God’s love, how would that feel to love Devon, like God loves him. I stepped into it and felt it and saw it.
Beautiful and Painful…. just like Spiral Walk a few weeks ago.