Help for Hurting Parents

Andrea
Welcome back to sacred by design, kit, kit, kit kit. We all have dreams, we have dreams for our kids and expectations for our kids. But oh my gosh, rarely do things go the way we hoped and planned, right? So today’s podcast might be just for me, I’ll just selfishly take it for me. But it is for mothers, women who have children, women who care for the spiritual growth of children, and we want them to know that they are loved by God and by us. The topic is big help for hurting parents. But you have consolidated, big help into eight beautiful principles. So I’m, I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Kit
Well, I hope it’s helpful. I mean, it did come out of time with God in my own experience. And so I do hope that it’s something that we can impart to people who are listening, that will really be helpful. But I remember God’s saying to me, when I was going through difficulties with my kids, because we all do it, he said, I’m writing a story for them that you wouldn’t rate. Oh, right. And you know, and he said it in such such tenderness. But he said, you know, you would take out all the suffering and all the disappointment, and, you know, he’s not going to do that, because he uses life experience and difficulty and suffering for for good, you know, and that’s not making, that’s not a Christian cliche, it’s really true. Life is so hard and so difficult, and, and raising children is so beautiful and so difficult. And God uses all of it, for redemption, for growth to draw us nearer to him. So, you know, there is no, we are not under estimating the pain and the difficulty of these experiences. And we’re also not under estimating the hope. And the power of God in these experiences is

Andrea
a both and then you are very well known for. So

Kit
there’s lots of different kinds of pain that we experience. And we’re not going to, you know, we’re not going to cover all the different nuances. But you know, we can talk about some generalities. But at some point in time, we have as a mother experienced pain and raising our children. And we want to understand how to walk through that. How do we invite God into that with us?

Andrea
So what kind of pain are we talking about?

Kit
You know, here’s here are just some circumstances that, you know, we would be familiar with that have happened in our lives, or in the lives of people we work with. A child has rebelled against God, and what’s nothing to do with them. A child is in an abusive relationship, and wants to stay in it refuses help, the child has declared that they’re gay, and they want to live that lifestyle. And that’s something that’s difficult for you, for whatever reason, that’s something that’s really difficult for you. A child is sexually promiscuous. A child suffers from deep anxiety. A child is addicted to pornography. You know, those are all things that we see. And it’s at some point, we will find ourselves in some unintended journey. And navigation of this is gonna be hard.

Andrea
But I love that you listed out already a lot of different hurts are hurtful things, or things that can feel hurtful, because I hope listeners understand right away, you’re not alone. Yeah, right. This has happened and happening and will happen. Right? So then how do we navigate? You organized eight principles for us? Yeah. So let’s get started. Yeah,

Kit
yeah, it’s kind of interesting when I think about that, because I didn’t sit down to say, let me come up with eight principles. It just kind of as I thought about what God did when he met me, in some of these places, or what he did with clients that I know these are the things that kind of came to the surface. So I’m trusting their, from him in some way, shape, or form, and so we can trust them. That’s awesome. So the first one is predictable. That’s always a helpful word, right? Especially when we’re dealing with all of the unknowns of child raising. But there are some predictable stages that we can go through. And just knowing that it’s normal, that some of these things are normal can help. So Elisabeth Kubler Ross who has been a just as expert in the stages of grief, since 1960s, these are applicable to us as parents today. Often when we first learn of a situation we we have our first experience a shock. This can’t be happening. My child’s addicted pornography, this cannot be happening, you know, and then there’s the Niall, you know, we’re just we’re in shock. We can’t believe it. We, we don’t want it to be true than anger is next. You know, often we’re just like, how can you be doing this god? Anger at the culture angry at God, you know, why are you doing this to my child? And then bargaining. We plead we bargain, Lord, I’ll do anything to make this different. And we can different drift into depression. Finally, we may begin to feel some acceptance. Now, these things are also not linear. You know, we don’t go boom, boom, boom, we can go from anger to shot to denial to acceptance to anger, you know, yeah, it’s kind of more of a labyrinth than a linear thing. But the acceptance we can, we aren’t like, oh, Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. But we might not feel as overwhelmed. We may begin to feel like, okay. I believe God is in this with me. I believe I can take it a day at a time and move forward.

Andrea
It’s a jumble. Yeah, and that’s okay.

Kit
Yeah, yeah, it is. It’s normal.

Andrea
So we’re grieving. Yeah. What we thought might be our reality in order to accept what is

Kit
Yeah, that’s exactly right. I often say we it’s like, we have to die, to our vision of what, whether it’s marriage, or friendship, or a child, we have to die to what we thought it was going to be in order to embrace what it really is what the reality is. Oh, yeah.

Andrea
It’s powerful, but really hard. Yeah.

Kit
Very much.

Andrea
Okay, so number two,

Kit
a parent’s priority is loving well. You know, I had this conversation with a client yesterday, and she’s in so much pain over her son. And there’s a lot of disappointment, a lot of anger and a lot of love. And, you know, I just, you know, we just were reminded that you can have anger, you can have disappointment. And you can also look at that child with sincere sincerity in your eyes and say, I love you, and nothing’s ever going to change that. And there’s real power in that. Right? Yeah. And there’s power and Christ’s love for us. And he loves us unconditionally. At the same time. He doesn’t approve of things we do. But he doesn’t separate from us. He wants the best for us. And he loves us. And he calls that forth in us. And we can do that with our kids. We can be accepting and discerning. So when a mom discovers that her 16 year old daughter is texting her boyfriend, she can start by saying, I love you. You are precious to me, and you matter. This is not who you are, this will hurt you. And it’s not best. So our words are important. But equally important is our tone. You know, can we have peace? Can we have care? Can we be sincere and warmth, as we as we talked to them, I learned that. But kids act out because there’s something going on, there’s something broken inside, and they need our love. They need our protection. They need boundaries, they need conversation. So how do we stay calm? And of course, we don’t stay calm in our own strength, we stay calm, because we invite God in and ask him to help us really pay attention to what’s going on? Do we need to get them to a therapist? We can’t be that therapist. We can come alongside them.

Andrea
And God is such a role model as the perfect father. Exactly.

Kit
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times that comes up in me and my heart and with my kids, but also in conversations with clients. Imagine God as a perfect parent.

Andrea
And he is to us any so he shows us how to be a perfect parent or how to try to be perfect. Right. So trusting God is the foundation here.

Kit
Well, it’s vital. Yeah, it really is. So the most important thing you can do in your relationship with your child, especially when they’re in trouble. Is your own deepening intimacy with Christ.

Andrea
Yes, yeah. Yeah, yes.

Kit
And there are no shortcuts here. You know, it’s this kind of love and peace is not possible apart from God. And the interesting thing is, I know I was and I can imagine a lot of other moms that are living Think, have been tempted to get distracted from our own journey when our kids are going through something. It’s like, okay, well, I don’t have time to be with God right now I got to deal with this crisis. And that’s really a really unfortunate thing that we fall into. Because the best thing is that we stay really close. And whatever that looks like, how will that looks like? You know, we’ve talked before about how do we stay close to God, there’s not a oh, it looks like a, b, and c, right? How do you stay close to God, Andrea? How do I stay close to God. And then just be aware that that’s going to be really important for you vital for you to stay close. And as you do that, as you draw more nearer to God, and invite him more deeply eat, not just invite Him into your life, but even more deeply during these times, then he fills us with our His Spirit. And we can pour that out to our child, you know, it really is a receiving and then a pouring out, we don’t receive it. We can pour it out

Andrea
the abiding, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like as moms, we can think of our kids as walking report cards. And if our kids aren’t, quote, unquote, doing well, then it is a reflection of us. But a real misstep, then for us when our report card supposedly is not doing well is that we keep that from God, when He wants all of it. Yeah, he and he is so attentive, and so persistent. And so that relationship with God is vital. So then that would lead naturally to prayer.

Kit
Yeah, and I want to get into prayer. The other thing I want to say that just came up for me, though, that was so I’m really glad you brought that up that idea of kids being our report cards. And one of the things that does happen as we draw near to God as our kids go through this is this idea of differentiation, which is a psychological term. But what it really means is we get more in touch with our selfhood from God, so that we can honor our child’s selfhood. And God, there’s a differentiation of realizing that you are not the same person, they are not you and they don’t reflect on you and you’re not them. And you don’t you know, like there’s the separateness that can be very healthy, and God wants it to be connected, but separate.

Andrea
I’m, I love that. I’m so glad you said that. Yeah,

Kit
I’m glad you brought it up, too, because I do think that is a temptation for all of us, as moms, you know, to to forget that they have their life, you have your life. And God’s going to meet each one of you in your life. And prayer is right there. Right. So we, we want to ask God that our prayers be more powerful than our words. You know, and this is a long time ago, a mom was telling a bunch of us what a mom if I think she had fourteens

Andrea
I can feel her.

Kit
And she sent me one day that God was saying to her, you put so much more stock in what you say, than what you pray. And so there really is just a beautiful, beautiful place of surrendering and praying that we forget, we really underestimate that power of prayer.

Andrea
So it’s also really important to say I think that when when as we talk about prayer and this relationship with God, that it’s not it’s not that we pray in order to fix Yeah, it’s not that we right in order to change, right, it’s we pray in order to reflect this beautiful, loving, gracious, forgiving, attentive god.

Kit
Yeah. That’s why we trust God, you’re good. God, you are light, God, you are with us, you will be done. That we’re not going to have a specific outcome because we don’t know. We don’t pray for the outcome. We pray for God to do his will to come close. We don’t pray for a specific result. And which is hard, but really important, because that can interfere. We’re not willing to just trust God if we’re willfully saying it needs to look like this. So, you know, and again, you know, I’m sure that everybody’s listening is like that is so much easier said than done. I know. We know. Oh, my gosh, what are the hardest things in the entire world?

Andrea
Hang it yesterday

Kit
lost our kids over to God. Yeah. Yeah. So as parents, we do want it fixed. And we can also get into what did I do wrong? It’s my fault. I have that happened with a conversation yesterday. There are so many things that happen in a child If we can’t control, I’m all for own what’s yours? But don’t own what’s not yours. You know? So we want to release ourselves, we want to have a healthy holy look. And ask God, you know what in here it because right Psalm 139 says, Search me know my heart test me, see if there’s any offensive way. And that’s a beautiful, beautiful prayer. So let it be a holy experience with God and ask him about it, rather than a self bashing experience. Trust that he’s going to show you some things if they’re there. And how beautiful would that be? Is that might be a part of your conversation with your child as you go through this, that it won’t be because you’re, you know, in an unhealthy way, loading yourself with guilt, to ask him to show what do you want me to learn? What do you want me to know or understand?

Andrea
That’s really good.

Kit
Yeah. And

Andrea
then that willingness to own what is yours, and then release? What isn’t? So there’s a real openness that’s necessary.

Kit
Yeah, in a situation where you don’t know that you have the resources to be open, you’re in some some days, you’re just putting one foot in front of the other, and you don’t know how you’re going to how you’re going to cope, but as much as we can, to release it, to trust God with it. And that goes into the next part. The sixth principle is surrender. You know, and we all need God, our children need God, they need to trust that there’s someone who loves them, and we’ll save them. And we’re not God. You know, we’re not, we’re not going to be that for them. And we do not want to try. And, you know, I think this whole idea of when we believe that there isn’t anything that our children can do, or say, to earn our love to lose our love, we can surrender them to God. We can say, I can be with them. I don’t have to fix them. I can trust them.

Kit
So when we give our children to God, that the detach and love thing comes into play, we give them over, and we take a step back, which for mothers is like what do you mean, take a step back. But it’s really important, give give our children to God and take a step back and trust God for them.

Andrea
I can be with them. I don’t have to fix them. Yeah.

Kit
And we can get in between God and our children if we’re always trying to fix and rescue and we need to trust that God really has things he’s doing in and with them, that we are not a part of, we can pray for them. And we can say the Lord may Your will be done may nothing come in the way of what you want to do. But it’s not us doing it, or coming up with what needs to be done even. Right, which is so hard, but I have really good

Andrea
plans and ideas.

Kit
Right, right, right.

Andrea
But I mean, I think about my own life if I think about my mom in relation to me, me in relation to my daughters. There was a lot of hurt in my life. However, God has used it through a lot of more heart to bring even more beauty that I could never imagine. So to that gives me experience to know and understand that okay, that hurts for you. But let’s see where this journey takes us. Yeah, and step back and

Kit
it’s back to that both and and there is no downplaying how much it hurts. It’s hurts it hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. And there’s hope there’s hope. There’s hope. There’s hope. Yeah.

Andrea
That’s a bonus principle. That repetition, right? Yeah. Okay. When but also, when we are allowing our kids to see us Yeah, hold back Yes. Or worse or not step in right away. Yes. They’re seeing us trust God that significant to

Kit
absolute. And, you know, that reminds me to have both of my children have said, um, um, you know, not out of, like, rejection but out of they’re trying they were they’re trying to figure their life out. for themselves at some point, you know, as teenagers. And so when we can trust God, we’re honor also to honoring God but honoring them in their journey by stepping back.

Andrea
So that is good. Gosh, that modeling? Yeah. have just been, without saying anything. I’m purposely not saying anything for them to step into their relationship with God into their journey more fully without mommy dictating. It’s just hard. Yeah.

Kit
And, you know, so along with that, you know, when we talk about modeling, one of the things that we can do that’s so important is our own self care. Oh, yes. So important. No, again, just like a relationship with God Ganic goes out the window, so does our self care, our soul care. And that is so important, we tend to I did this so much, but, and I know other peep moms do too, we tend to neglect our own need to support and nourish ourselves while we’re, you know, paying attention to our children. And it’s like that old adage about, you know, you’re an aeroplane and the oxygen goes down, you always put it, put it on yourself first, you know, it’s true. So remember that, again, we, we want to take care of ourselves, we want to seek trusted friends to talk to we want to get a coach or a counselor, a therapist, a direct spiritual director. We want to do things that bring us life, during this, you know, take good care of ourselves, get out in the woods paint, makes sure that you’re taking care of yourself, because what you’re going through is very, very hard. And you need time to take care of yourself, and God will show you and I think he’s so faithful if we say, Lord, help me pay attention to what gives me life. And then do that. Yeah.

Andrea
And it’s not lighting a candle, and sitting, we’re saying, like you’re saying go out. And though it can be envy, but it can be kayak, can be kickboxing, it can be all sorts of things. Yes. God wants you to feel that joy in that fun and that spark within yourself.

Kit
And really, we are we all get release and joy in different things. Some of us are introverts or extroverts. Some of us love exercise, some of us hate it, you know, and it’s just, it’s like, what is unique for you that you can lean into.

Andrea
It’s not leaf blowing.

Kit
On my list, either.

Andrea
However, that is my life right now.

Kit
So, and then the very last one, which is all the more, it’s more powerful to me all the time, is live in the present moment. In some ways, it’s a little inexplicable. I mean, there are ways to describe why it’s so important, but there are ways it’s inexplicable, but to live in the moment. What’s true right now, what’s true right here is so life giving, we don’t realize how much we are robbed of living in this present moment when we’re always thinking about the past and the future. And so, a wise friend once shared with me about this. And he said, God is fully alive in this present moment, and an eternity, and darkness. Satan’s territories are the past in the future. So whenever I I’ve got has helped me train myself to whenever I hear myself going, well, if only or what if I don’t go there? I just don’t go there. That’s good. It’s a signal to me. It’s a big stop sign. Now it took me years. And I’m I’m probably about 95% there most the time. There’s a time when I get sucked in for sure. But it has been a dramatic.

Andrea
And what are those phrases again?

Kit
What if only, if only I had done this, if only we had done that? Or what if he does this? What if she does that? Yeah. What if and if only those are the things that will really get you right into the darkness right into that place of no hope and no receiving truth of what’s true right now. So the the antidote is Lord, what’s true right now? What’s true right now?

Andrea
Okay. I feel like we could almost do an episode per principle. And I took notes for myself. I have homework. This was a lot. But we hope this was helpful.

Kit
Yeah. Yeah. And I do want to say a prayer just to comfort moms who are sitting here right now I would not want them to rush back in to their life, without sitting for a moment and being prayed over and comforted, because maybe there’s a lot of pain that’s come up, maybe there’s a lot of insecurity that’s come up. So let me just say a moment, just the Lord, we just, we know that you are here for each and every mom who’s listening. And we just pray, Lord, that they would know that you are near. That what you say is true, that you will never leave us, you will never forsake us. That you are goodness and you are light. And they can lean into right this moment, with their fear, with their pain, with their anxiety, with their sadness. Or thank you that you are here for each one of them in the unique way that they need you. Thank you, Jesus.

Andrea
Thank you, kid. This was powerful.

Kit
Thank you, Lord.