Thy Will Be Done

“Momma prayed, momma cried, momma laid awake at night.
She would fight my bat­tles while I slept away
Cause momma knew life is hard
with­out some­body on your side
I don’t know how, but there is power in the way
The way my momma prayed.“
~~ Words and Music by Jere­miah Olson (40 Miles North) ~~

Free will.

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.

There comes a point at which you can no longer con­trol the choices your child makes. Even­tu­ally, they have to stand on their own as inde­pen­dent beings. Ask any par­ent of an adult child if they ever stop wor­ry­ing, fret­ting, wish­ing, hop­ing for their child and they will con­firm that the job of par­ent­ing does not end until the day the par­ent either dies or becomes too inca­pac­i­tated to con­tinue func­tion­ing in the role. Once a par­ent, always a parent.

But par­ents have to learn an impor­tant les­son: They must let go, stand back and stand silent, observ­ing the child’s for­ays into the world. That’s why I con­sider free will a parent’s worst night­mare. Par­ents have the ben­e­fit of life expe­ri­ence, world­li­ness. Par­ents can see their chil­dren hurl­ing toward dis­as­ter, but must let the child learn from his/her own mis­takes, just as the par­ent him/herself did.

Did you ever tell your par­ents to “butt out — it’s my life! It’s my deci­sion!” I sure did. Did you ever accuse your par­ents of hov­er­ing over you, smoth­er­ing you, not let­ting you find your “own way in the world” or words to that effect? I’m guilty on all counts. I had some mon­u­men­tal strug­gles with my par­ents. I thought they were unso­phis­ti­cated and over-protective. They thought I was reck­less, fool­ish and too stub­born to heed their wise coun­sel. All three of us were right. All three of us were wrong. Like most folks, we lived through all of it and our rela­tion­ship tran­si­tioned into a com­fort­able alliance of older and younger gen­er­a­tion, espe­cially after they became grandparents.

But there is one thing of which I am cer­tain: We sur­vived that gen­er­a­tional rite of pas­sage because of their prayers.

While I was busy rebelling, hang­ing out with the “wrong crowd,” learn­ing lessons the only way I ever seem capa­ble of, i.e., the “hard way,” they were at home pray­ing for me.

There comes a point in every parent’s life when, in rela­tion­ship to his/her child, there is really only one thing left to do: Pray.

Some­times par­ents see their child not rely­ing upon the faith struc­ture within which they he/she was raised. Or the child goes through a period of ques­tion­ing and, per­haps, aban­dons alto­gether the beliefs his/her par­ents strove every day to impart to that child so that he/she would adopt those beliefs and live his/her life in accor­dance with them. Such times try the par­ents’faith.

On Jan­u­ary 2, 2008, I shared the story of my friend whose son, a high school senior, told her that he is an athe­ist. Her reaction?

“I don’t believe for a moment that he’s really become an athe­ist. I raised him to believe and I think this is just a rebel­lious phase that he is going through. I think he told me he doesn’t believe in God as much for shock value as any­thing else. And to test me. But I’m not wor­ried about it because he will work things out for him­self and be just fine.”

And then she added, “Besides, I pray for him like crazy and I have faith that my prayers will be heard.” She smiled as she said that.

My friend and her son are doing just fine. She under­stands that prayer is the most pow­er­ful force in the uni­verse. She under­stands, as does the song­writer who penned this week’s quote, that there is power in the way that she prays for, loves and sup­ports her child. She does not demand overtly that he con­form to her notions about how he should think, believe and behave.

Rather, in the quiet of her heart, she prays that he will find his way to a faith model that he can claim as his own. She prays that he will remain safe, make wise choices and suc­ceed. She prays that his dreams will be ful­filled and ends each prayer with that sim­ple, but pro­found, phrase that we all repeat daily: “Thy will be done.”

Because when there is noth­ing left to do, a par­ent not only prays, but prays those words, exer­cis­ing his/her faith by sur­ren­der­ing to the will of the Divine Cre­ator to be man­i­fested in the life of his/her child, know­ing that all truths, along with right­eous­ness and sal­va­tion lie within that unknow­able, but mer­ci­ful will.

Thanks go to Heather at Titus 2 Woman for host­ing this week! Drop by and read the other par­tic­i­pants’ dis­cus­sion of this week’s quote.

Tech­no­rati Tags: In “Other” Words

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