I'm a pretty sentimental person. When my children were born, I would think forward to the time when they would be grown with 1 part relief and 3 parts sadness. Knowing they would be out of our home and daily care "someday" motivated me to persevere through late nights, snotty noses, and sassy attitudes. Now that my husband and I are empty nested and "someday" is here, I see that my end of game fantasy scenario lacked a key feature: worries and concerns.
One of the hardest things to deal with in parenting is the realization that just as things go wrong for adults, so too can things go wrong for our children. As they grow, our ability to do anything tangible to help them shrinks.
I guess I thought that once they were adults, I wouldn't be plagued with doubts or fears about their safety or success. I imagined their problems would be insignificant because my husband and I were such good parents. We fed them well. We guided and taught them far more than shamed them. We took them to church. We have prayed so fervently. Thankfully, they both chose Jesus in their elementary years. With their salvations secure, what could possibly be left to worry about?
I'm not saying by any means that I sit around worried terribly about our kids, but I am surprised at how much they still need our support of every kind. I'm very surprised at how complex the world has become for them, and the issues they are navigating are nothing compared to what we went through at their ages. I'm equally impressed by their hard work and good character. But I still get worried....sometimes terribly.
Even though they are grown, I still have worries that they will die. Given that 100% of people will die and having had close calls with one multiple times and the other one time, I know the risk is real. I have worries that my children will not find their special person and will miss out on all a good partnership has to offer. Even though they professed faith in Jesus as children and their salvations are secure, I probably worry the most about their spiritual development. My husband and I did a lot to try to expose the children to the love of Jesus, and to the Bible, and we went to church every Sunday…of course, that is a given if your father is the pastor. I've had to accept that my children's faith journeys, desire to read their Bible daily, and go to church every Sunday is a matter I cannot control.
Anxiety is a normal emotion. I know this well as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Anxiety is a normal part of the human experience. Much like you frequently feel you have to go to the bathroom, we need not be distressed by having a normal emotion. We know what this feeling of "having to go to the bathroom" is saying to do. Experience has told us to neither freak out and get it out as fast as possible nor to ignore it. It would be silly to be mad at ourselves for feeling the urge to pee.
Anxiety is just like that: a signal telling us something. It is telling us that we are concerned something bad might happen. And nearly always, we are right. We live in a broken world so the possibility of an unpleasant outcome virtually always exists. So, we need a good way to work through this feeling.
The way to work through anxiety is to acknowledge that which we are worried may happen, and then do reasonable things to prevent or lessen the impacts of the forecasted negative event(s). If I'm worried about being able to pay my bills, I find a job. If I am worried my kid won't know Jesus, I model Him in my behavior and attitude. If I'm worried my kid will die in a car wreck, I pray. But I cannot hold them hostage in the basement. Because then I'd have worries of a different kind....
After I take reasonable action to prevent what I imagine might go wrong, there will still be some worry....there is always room for worry. That's life. That space must be filled in with faith. Faith in God that He will provide, faith that your child will and can grow, faith in yourself that you can learn new things, and faith that you've survived hard things and you could do it again. To support yourself and grow in faith, I encourage you to put yourself in a faith supportive community, such as a local, healthy church. Attend a service, small group, or Bible study, and learn about this God that loves you so. He loves your kids more than you love them. He's more concerned for them than you are.
One of my spiritual practices is to pray for my kids. And sometimes it's hard to know exactly what to pray. I have found that using a very simple prayer that I say for each of my loved one helps. The one I wrote is free for your use can be found on our website https://lastinglove.us/products/warriors-prayer
Keep loving yourself and others well. To God Be the Glory!
Jennifer Brost, LMHC