I’m in a curious stage in my motherhood. Half my children are old enough to make many of their own choices and to either suffer the consequences or reap the rewards. The other half are still young enough that I need to guide them and flat out make some of their choices for them.
It’s difficult when you’re trying to explain to a child why they don’t get to make a certain choice for themselves. They don’t know how much they don’t know, and they get frustrated and sometimes belligerent when they feel you’re running their lives for them. But it’s even more difficult when they are old enough to choose, and you just cross your fingers and hold your breath that their choice is the wisest one.
My three-year-old believes he should get to decide whether or not to wear his coat. It’s been one of the coldest winters ever here in Utah, with more snowfall than I even remember in my life. I can’t let him run around without a coat. I just can’t do that. But I also can’t force him into the coat—he’s strong, he’s stubborn, and it would be a huge wrestling match with one or the other of us getting hurt, all for a coat. I open up the front door and show him what the weather is like outside. Sometimes I’ll even stick him on the porch and let him feel how cold it is. Then he’ll put the coat on without a fight, but it takes that moment of realization in order for him to obey. Me just telling him isn’t good enough.
It makes me wonder how our Heavenly Father feels when He sees us make choices. Is He holding His breath, hoping we’ll make the right decision? He’s told us what’s right and what’s wrong, but there are those of us who have to feel the cold before we’ll prepare for it. Just being told isn’t good enough for us. We need evidence. Hopefully, once we have that evidence, we turn immediately and put on our coats.
As parents, we have to let our children make their own choices as they get old enough to understand cause and effect. If our thirteen-year-old chooses to go out without her coat on, she has to understand that she may get sick or at the very least, be uncomfortable all day. We are tempted to run after her and make her put the coat on. We are tempted to go on dates with our sixteen-year-olds and just make sure they behave themselves. This letting-go process is painful, but it’s necessary for us and it’s necessary for them.
As children of our Heavenly Father, we have to make our own choices, but that doesn’t mean He’ll ever let us walk in darkness. Just as we will always be there to offer advice to our own children, He will be there to guide us. The choice is always ours. He will never force us to be good. He will also never leave us.
Related Blogs:
A Personal Relationship with Heavenly Father