Letting Go of False Guilt

By Rob Parsons

There is no pain like parental pain. The love of a parent for a child is like no other. Our children can disappoint us, hurt us, even abuse us, but somehow we cannot stop loving them. Sometimes it seems that the more they cause us to worry the more we love them. We would willingly give our lives for these children.

And yet sometimes that love can be very hard to give. I remember a woman telling me that her 13-year old daughter had driven her to despair. She said, "I hear other parents talk about the day when their kids leave home and the nest will be empty and yet I cannot wait for my daughter to go. I can't honestly tell you that I do feel love for this child."

But something was driving this woman to tell her story to a stranger, and I am convinced it was a cry for help that said, "Help me to love this girl who, at times, I feel has ruined my life. She has broken my heart yet she is part of me—I cannot live without loving her."

And yet as much as we love them, as much as we want their good, as much as we would give all that we possess for their sakes, we cannot live their lives for them. Our children make choices. And sometimes those choices are bad ones.

A couple comes to my mind. They are church leaders and wonderful parents. Some years ago they sat with their 16-year-old daughter in a prison cell. She had just been arrested for burglary. I will never forget the simplicity of what they said to her in the cell that night: "Annie, you are breaking our hearts, but you will never stop us from loving you."

I am sure that those parents would have willingly changed places with their child in that cell. But even if it had been possible, it might not have been for the best. We are their parents; we have spent all our lives making things right for them, but at times even we have to step back a little and let them learn the lessons of life. Sometimes the pain is part of the coming home.

But that doesn't stop us feeling that somehow we are responsible. The parable of the prodigal son is the third story of a trilogy. In the first there is a lost sheep, and in the second a lost coin. It would be hard to blame the sheep (and certainly the coin!) for getting lost, but this story is different. Here the boy is capable of making a decision and does so—to turn his back on the father and the father's house. He, himself, chooses. And yet in spite of the fact that our children make their own choices, we so often feel the guilt ourselves.

I have heard that guilt voiced by parents all across the world. One couple will say: "Where did we go wrong? Would it be different if we'd been firmer with them?" Another will say, "Perhaps we were too rigid." A father will say, "If only we'd had daily devotions with our children," and another will say: "If only we hadn't had daily devotions with them. Perhaps we forced our faith on them too much." The guilt of those "if onlys" can be gut wrenching, all pervasive, and it sometimes causes us to simply freeze in fear for our children.

We look at other families who seem to be doing so well. We meet people who say, "All four of my children are fantastic Christians" and we think: It must be me. How come I got it so wrong? And at times it seems so unfair. We see homes where the parents appear to have hardly bothered at all and yet their kids seem to be a cross between Mother Teresa and Hudson Taylor.

And as if parenting wasn't hard enough anyway, modern society practically forces us to see our children's lives as a judgment on whether or not we have been successful. We want our children to do well because we want to be well-thought-of ourselves. So often, when our children go through tough times—whether it's unexpectedly poor grades or some much more serious issue—our first thought is, What will people think of us?

One church leader, realizing that this was happening to him, put it like this: "My boy is going through a hard time right now and my main concern is, 'What will my congregation think?' But I only have just enough emotional energy to deal with the real issues, and I've decided that I have to set myself free of what others think. The greatest need is my son's well-being, not my reputation."

Only more honesty among us will set us free from the tyranny of the fear of what others will think; only less judging, more praying, and the realization that God, the perfect parent, is a hurting parent. All of us would do well not to crow too loudly when our kids are doing well. Marie Anne Blakely put it well: "A mother is neither proud nor arrogant because she knows that any moment the headmaster may ring to say that her son has just ridden a motorcycle through the school gymnasium."

Some years ago Dr. R.T. Kendall, then the senior minister at Westminster Chapel in London, was asked by the Billy Graham organization if they could film him for an hour talking about theology. Dr. Kendall talked to the camera about some of the issues he used to tackle in his Friday evening School of Theology classes. When they got to the end the producer said: "We've got five minutes of film left. Would you talk to us about your family?" Dr. Kendall, who could be blunt to a fault, replied: "You don't want to know about my family. I've been a failure as a father."

I believe that R.T., as we call him, is a wonderful father, but it was his view that when his children were young he devoted too much time to his studies and to Westminster Chapel. At the time the film was made you could say that his children were prodigals. However, the producer begged him to continue, and so R.T. talked about those years and the mistakes he felt he had made. The only part of the film the producers ever used—and they showed it to thousands of church leaders all across the world—was those last few minutes. It was utterly compelling. It said to others going through heartbreaking times—"this is not just you."

It's no surprise they used the film in that way. I well remember hearing Dr. Billy Graham talk of the years when his son Franklin was a prodigal. He said, "Ruth and I lived in a house on top of a hill, and some nights we would lie awake in the early hours of the morning waiting for Franklin to come home. Finally we would hear the car screeching its way around the bends as it came up the mountain, and we would know, at least for one more night, he was safe."

So many parents are carrying a heavy load of guilt they have no need to bear. That's not to say they have been perfect parents. They have just been parents—parents who have given this task their very best efforts. There's hardly a mother or father on the face of the earth who wouldn't love to have another shot at parenting—to rewind the clock and get the chance to read all the books and go to all the seminars before their children hit the teenage years. But even if we had that chance, the truth is we'd probably just make different mistakes.

It's time to lay that guilt down. You have carried it long enough. By all means ask forgiveness for those things you know you've done wrong as a parent, but then join the rest of us who have loved and guided our children as much as we could, but who, in the end, have to watch as they make their own decisions.

There is nothing so soul-destroying as false guilt. Let it go. And begin to ask God the Father to reach out to your prodigals as only he can. Ultimately they are in his hands not ours.

And, in truth, it was always so.