Lord, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws; our heart’s desire is to glorify your name. (Isaiah 26:8, NLT)
Do you remember the old hymn “Trust and Obey”? That really is the disciple’s life, isn’t it?
Recently, we’ve lived out this command in a new way. We moved to Thailand in early September. As you know, if you’ve followed me for very long, we have three children who are on the autism spectrum. We have four children–one who is neuro-normal, so to speak (let’s be honest—is anyone really normal, whatever that means), and three that are neurodiverse. They are high-functioning, and all four of our children are now adults.
If you are a parent who is living with adult children who are still struggling with different learning disabilities or challenges like autism, ADHD, ODD, all of the initials, you know where I’m coming from in this post.
When our children become adults, we want them to be independent enough to live on their own yet still be part of our family unit. That’s the dream for every parent–that their children will grow up to be responsible, trustworthy adults with integrity and a Christian worldview. That’s the dream.
When we have children who have become disillusioned with life and are struggling emotionally or have walked away from their faith, that dream struggles to stay alive.
When we have children who have special needs, and they struggle just to get through the day with their challenges or anxiety, the dream struggles to stay alive.
Hope
But I want to give you hope today. I want to share our experience.
When we accepted the call to Thailand, the hardest part of that whole idea was thinking of leaving our adult children at home without us. I knew in my heart of hearts that God was leading us to Thailand for ourselves and for the ministry he had for us. But just as much, he was leading us away from our children because I have a hard time as the mom not helping them too much. My daughter and I are super close, and our two oldest still live at our house. It was hard for me to help them be independent as much as I wanted them to be, as much as I wanted them to be able to live on their own and have their own families, their own homes someday. Frankly, I had gotten used to the notion of them always being in our home. Since they had grown up in a Chinese culture when we were missionaries, it’s normal for children who are not married to still live at home sometimes, and it didn’t seem strange to us because that’s what we saw while we lived in Taiwan. It seems normal to have them at home. But I know in the American culture that is not considered normal. That is sometimes the default because of financial situations or special needs, but I realize my children need to be independent enough to live on their own because they are capable.
So, as we packed our bags and prepared to move, I struggled, I prayed, and I came to a point that was a true victory for me. I was praying one day. You know how you pray and you say the words a zillion times, but there’s one time when you say the words, and you know you truly mean it more than you ever have before? That’s where I was.
Trusting God and Our Children
I came to the point where I gave my children to the Lord for the umpteenth time, but this time I could see that I was truly handing them over in a way I never had before. And it really boiled down to trusting God. That’s really where my heart was. I was not truly trusting God with my children, and that is not a good thing. I realized in that moment that I truly trusted God with my children. I truly trusted my children with God. I knew that they had hearts for the Lord and wanted to follow him, but I felt like, I was standing in the way.
So, we got on that plane. We moved to Thailand and recognized that they would be okay. And they are! I am so proud of who they are as adults and who they’ve become in their faith. I’m excited to see who they’re becoming as we’ve gotten out of the way and allowed God to work in their lives.
I was talking to my husband after we got to Thailand. We talked to the kids on the phone, and afterward I asked, “Do you hear it even in Nate’s voice. He sounds more confident, more mature, more grown up just in the way he’s handling himself and in the way he’s talking?” It was amazing to hear that, and our daughter has taken on responsibilities she never did when we were there. In a sense, we were stifling our children’s maturity and their abilities to do what they need to do and their abilities to follow Christ fully.
Someone Had to Leave the Nest
We joked that in order to have an empty nest, we decided to leave the nest. God works in mysterious ways sometimes. It has been an amazingly freeing experience over these past four weeks to see how God has already been working in our children’s lives.
Before we left home, one Sunday, as the pastor was preaching, and quite honestly, I don’t know if it had anything to do with the Scripture or what the pastor was saying because God was speaking to my heart so loudly. I felt like God was saying, “Everyone is excited to see what God’s going to do with you and Dave in Thailand, but wait and see what I do with your children here in the States.” It gave me such hope. I shared it with the kids on the way home from church, and my daughter just started crying. It was good tears—tears of hope for her too. I know she misses us, and I know it was scary for her. But it’s been amazing, and God is so faithful. I think that’s really the key to this whole experience: trust–trusting God and trusting our kids.
Obeying
I know there are some children who can never live on their own who have special needs. That is sometimes the situation. We take that responsibility as parents. We love our kids, and we do what needs to be done. But this is one of those cases where doing what needed to be done meant I needed to get out of the way. I don’t think I’ve over-parented my kids completely. I’ve tried to help them be independent and get jobs and be responsible and do chores and all the things, but God wanted more for them. If we hadn’t obeyed God, we would have been in his way of what he wants to do for our kids. That’s something as parents we really need to weigh out and discern. Are we getting in the way of what God really wants to accomplish in our kids’ lives? We want to parent well. We want to disciple our kids well. That sometimes means we need to trust God more and trust ourselves a little less–get out of the way. Let God do his work. God created our children. Like it says in Ephesians 2:10:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10, ESV)
God has a plan, and God is working out that plan in our children’s lives. If they have chosen to follow Christ, and they want to be disciples and follow Christ, we are really disobeying God if we’re in the way. If we’re showing the way; if we’re creating a way for them to serve more and be involved in ministry, that’s wonderful.
Stretching and God’s Strength
We were doing that as well, but God had ministry outside of our ministry that he wanted our children to be involved in. I’ve been praying for that for years because our children are pastor’s kids, missionary kids. They’ve had their dad be their pastor their whole lives. So I was always concerned, when they got on their own, would they find a church and a pastor that they could follow and find a ministry of their own? With our kids living with us, that was even more difficult for them to find their way, but they need to find their way. They need to find their ministry, their path that Christ is leading them on. It is the most wonderful, fun, exciting thing to see them doing that. I love it because some of the things God is calling them to do scares them. Isn’t that the way it always is? God always stretches us. He always calls us to something we know we can’t do in our own strength. We need God’s strength. In our weakness, he is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10), and that goes for our children as well. In their weakness, he is strong, and he will glorify himself. We just need to get out of the way.
I hope those parents who are reading this today find encouragement in these two things:
1. We can truly trust God with our children.
2. We can happily and joyfully get out of the way and see what God is going to do in our children’s lives.
God says if we lack wisdom to ask him (James 1:5) with the help of the Holy Spirit and God’s wisdom and his discernment we can know how much we need to let go and get out of the way and how much we still need to support our kids as they’re learning adulthood and getting out on their own. We can find that balance of what God wants to do in their lives, if we will just trust and obey.
“Trust and Obey” sung by Big Daddy Weave
To learn more about our work in Thailand and to pray for us and our children’s adventures, please read my monthly newsletter. Here’s this month’s newsletter: and you can sign up to get it each month on my website.