Fear

I've felt this feeling building up inside of me everyday since February 2, 2006, and I'm suddenly just able to grasp what it is. It really started to come to a head this weekend, when Chad and I went to see the movie Taken. And I think that it's just capped off tonight. I have a small group with senior girls who just left; they spent the past hour talking about friends and relationships; the things that their friends do to defy their parents, how frustrated they get with their own mothers, friends intentionally dating boys to bother their parents, and the things that they feel their parents have done wrong. I know that none of this is new...it's the same talk that I experienced as a high-schooler, it's the same talk that every girl who's been in one of my senior small groups has had, but tonight it hit home...my girls are going to be this age and possibly these girls! I think that I live day to day assuming that the relationship our girls and I have now--knowing every scratch on the their bodies, and every funny thought that comes out of their mouths--will always be our relationship. I pray that it is, but I know that the reality is that they are going to go through spells (hopefully short ones!) when they may not want to talk to me or even like me! I think that I've always realized my fear that I won't always be able to protect them from being hurt by others', but I think that I'm just now realizing the truly scary (and somewhat selfish) fear that I won't always be able to protect myself from being hurt by them! I can take some comfort in the fact that despite the distance, I feel closer to my parents now more than ever. I also know that Chad and I weren't given the gift of children for our own enjoyment, but to nurture and show Christ to. We weren't promised a return of love just because we give it; that is certainly not why God shows love to any of us! I just know that I feel a strange sense of fear and sick tonight as I think back on the conversation I was just a part of. I think that it's just another dose of why it's so important to be a praying parent! After all, the end of the story is good! The Prodigal Son did return home!