One of the most difficult things my wife and I have had to work through as our kids have gotten older, is learning how to trust God with our kids. Over the past 2-3 years they have been making their own decisions and those decisions are setting long term trajectories on who they are, where they will live, and who they will become. It has been an internal wrestling match as we have tried to know when to offer input and when to be quiet — and we have spoken way more times when we should have been quiet than the other way around. We have realized we love our kids, not out of protecting them or wanting the best for them, but because we really like them, we really like laughing with them, competing with them, hearing their dreams, ideas, passions. We feel we are better when we are around them. And this is the place in their lives where they get to choose whether they want to be a part of our lives. As a parent, this stage feels pretty risky and vulnerable.
Over the last 2 years one of our kids got married and settled into a community where she and her husband will probably never leave. Another one of our kids turned down an incredible job opportunity to step into a year long residency with no guarantee where that will lead, but with some hope on what that will look like for her in the coming months. Our third kid, decided to commit to a 5 year college program that will give him education and experience that will set him up to succeed long term, but with no specificity where he will land after college. In the midst of that Kris and I were looking for our next season of ministry, knowing this would be the first time that we would not be in the same state, maybe region of the country as our kids. We didn’t know how much we would see them or if we would see them at all. We didn’t know how it would effect our relationship with them. Not knowing how moving to Vegas would effect our long term relationship with our kids was the hardest part of handing the decision over to God. Many times we talked about whether we were ok handing our future location to God or tell God what location we were ok with and then letting Him help us find a ministry location there. With what felt like a leap of faith, we chose to hand over control of our future location to God and trust Him with the rest.
Fast forward a year in Las Vegas. We have gotten to see our kids at least 6 times this past year. Because we are only a 43 minute flight away from where they are living, we are able to pop in and help them out, hang out with them, celebrate birthdays, and show up for special events. We have gotten to see our kids flourish in community, step more into who God has made them to be, become more confident and life giving to the people around them, and launch into the next seasons of their lives. As we have watched them over this past year, we are humbled by watching how much God loves our kids more than we do and that we can not only trust Him with them, but also are encouraged to cheer them on in a different way this season.
This whole year has been a series of trusting God when it hasn’t made sense and we have learned that when we battle the urge to control and manipulate, God has space to the better and the best. There have been some sleepless nights, intense wrestling, and anxiety of messing up, and we are learning a deeper and deeper awareness that our lives are not our own (definitely our kids lives are not our’s to control) and that if we trust God, He will always show us a bigger plan in how He is working in and through us in this world.