“For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. Therefore I also have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the Lord.” (1 Samuel 1:27-28)
When you discover you are about to become a parent, sheer exhilaration sets in followed by sheer humility.
When we see them for the first time at their birth our hearts overflow with pride, love and gratitude to the Lord for such a bundle of blessing.
We feed and clothe them, change their diapers countless times a day and we give thanks to the Lord for the blessing of being a father and mother.
We sing lullabies to them … we whisper sweet words into their ears when they only know there is a sound of love and care in the tone of those words.
And we promise the Lord we are going to bring them up to serve the Lord … to be good and honest young people who will be able to benefit the world around them by their good character and lives.
And we promise them beginning in hushed tones that we will always love them, meet their needs, and that we will always be there for them.
We read Little Golden Books like ‘Pokey Little Puppy’ to them and watch as they learn to discover the images on the page and to touch those books that have fabric to be felt and sounds to be heard.
We read the stories from the Bible when they can’t even say the word Bible to introduce them early to our God and His love and care.
We pray for them and we pray over them while they are still in the basinet … to the crib … to the small youth bed … and even in their own ‘big’ bed.
We pray that God will protect them and guide them and that He will always be mindful of them.
We pray when they start off for their first day of school that the world will not harm them or conquer them.
We pray when they spend their first night away from us for their safety.
We pray for them when they go out with our car for the very first time … that they have learned the place of responsibility, courtesy and mindfulness of others … and we pray that they will come back home at the designated time safe.
And we give thanks when they do come home … because we hear far too often of those who don’t.
We read and we hear on the news of how so many young people can become enticed by the false promises of drugs and alcohol and illicit sex that can pollute and destroy the minds of those who indulge and we pray… please Lord help my son or daughter not to become another statistic … another victim!
And if they choose the right way we give thanks … but if they choose the wrong way we pray for patience, love and for their deliverance. We ask the Lord to please give them time to come back to the safety of His care. We ask the Lord to forgive us of any failures on our part and we pray some more.
We fear for “the lights of the far country” and the fatal attraction they can be at a young age and moving forward in life. And if our young choose to heed the beckoning call … we groan … we hurt so deep in our hearts that there are no words to describe the pain … and we plead with them to “come home” to come back to the Lord … to walk in His ways … and to once again experience the joy and the peace of “walking in the sunlight” of His love!
To all of the parents whose sons and daughters have walked away from the good teaching you shared … from the best example you could show in the absence of perfection … from the love you brought them up in throughout their lives … who have walked away from what is right, good, pure, honorable …
Never give in … never, never give up … and pray to the Lord of heaven that you can find the strength and the resolve to look out of the door and down the path that leads to your door every day for the prodigal that is yours and be ready, willing and able to embrace them … to clothe them … and to celebrate their return to the Lord … if they will only repent!
A father once told his son, “Son, I will fight Satan up to the very gates of Hell for you … but I will not go through the gates of Hell with you should you choose to continue in sin … nor will I go there for you, for I must answer to the Lord as well!”
Life is full of joys, pleasures and successes, but it also contains disappointments, heartaches and failures! Perhaps life is tempered this way to help us not to become too attached to this world. Peter offers such wonderful and reassuring words recorded in 1 Peter 5:7, “casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.”
Bill Fairchild, Jr.
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