PRODIGAL KIDS

By Lorraine Wylie

When it comes to young people and promiscuity, drug abuse or homosexuality, there aren't many who sit on the moral fence. Everyone, Christians included know exactly which way to jump. Fine, until it's your kid leaving their muddy prints on Christendom's nice sanitised environment. Then harsh words, long lectures even angry threats that once seemed adequate weapons now fire useless blanks. So how do parents cope when kids step off the straight and narrow?

Many are left feeling bewildered and confused by the lifestyles their children have chosen. Most blame themselves for not listening, talking, guiding or even praying enough. Yet this sense of failure is either scriptural nor correct.

The father of the prodigal son may have carried a heavy burden, but it was sorrow not guilt. Neither does the role of parenting have a sell-by date. It may be a smaller part, but the play goes on! There's no parental blueprint to help deal with errant kids or their 'alternative' lifestyles. But there is a precedent. The Biblical account of the prodigal son is more than an illustration of God's welcome for a repentant sinner. It describes a father who, like many of us, is experiencing parenthood at one of its most difficult times. His son is suffering a severe bout of prodigalitis!

It's not easy when a son or daughter moves on. It's a sign of time passing, an end of an era. Yet it's a natural process and most of us, after a few nostalgic tears, share in their excitement. But it's hard to whip up any enthusiasm when their direction is the road to heartache. It becomes impossible when they turn toward paths totally alien to our own beliefs or values.

 

Something to Add? Visit my Blog