freeing others to journey...

The primary challenge of life for me these days is parenting adult children.

To watch them struggle and not be able to rescue is pain-full. Heartbreaking.

Reading in the woods... a Kindle by a campfire... I meet one sharing his challenges with a struggling child:

The best thing I could do for her was to stop trying to do anything. ...

The only way she would ever be well again was if and when she freely chose to be. The best I could do as her father was to stand back and give her that freedom even at the risk of her using it to choose for death instead of life. ...

If your daughter is struggling for life in a raging torrent, you do not save her by jumping into the torrent with her, which leads only to your both drowning together. Instead you keep your feet on the dry bank --- you maintain as best you can your own inner peace, the best and strongest of who you are --- and from that solid ground reach out a rescuing hand.

---Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets 

And my mind goes to journeys... and I realize... everyone has to travel their own... find their own way...

In trying to prod my adult children along their journeys, manipulating their course, I reveal my lack of trust in God and His presence with them.

My own journey... becomes derailed... when I'm too focused on someone else's...

I lose joy and peace.

I lose sight of His presence.

The Prodigal God... the One who pours Himself out freely... exemplifies the freeing of adult children to choose...

"There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.' And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. ...

Luke 15:11-13 ESV

Jesus's parable of the Father... reveals a God who allows each one of us the freedom to do what we will... and He does not interfere... but He is always present... waiting for each to come to the end of self and return...

Today, I feel the ache of the Father's heart in freeing loved ones to journey according to their choices...

The challenge... keeping my feet firmly planted in His presence... standing by... reaching out.... with a rescuing hand... waiting...

Trust in him at all times, O people;

pour out your heart before him;

God is a refuge for us.

Psalm 62:8 ESV