The longer I am in ministry, the more I come across parents of adult children who live with self-condemnation because they feel like they weren’t the parents they longed to be. Some of them really did mess up (and I address that here). Others are definitely being too hard on themselves. My job as a pastor is to help them apply God’s word to allow conviction while also offering His forgiveness and grace. This is my first attempt to do that. Can you help me finish it? There are no doubt other mitigating factors that make parenting so difficult I might not have run across. If you’d like to offer a suggestion or two for something I should add, please do so in the comments. And perhaps those of us who have adult children could encourage each other there in the comments as well.
Amy’s husband Stuart played professional minor league baseball. Maybe that’s why she likes to use baseball analogies so often when she tells me she wishes she could have another “at bat” with her oldest son Nathan.
“I know we struck out with him when he was young. Stuart was gone half of the year, money was tight, and I wasn’t born with the ‘mom gene.’ Half the time, I honestly didn’t know what to do. We had to move so much that it was hard to build friendships and find a supportive church. The life of a professional athlete has so many mountains and valleys, which puts a lot of pressure on the marriage and the whole family. We’d drag Nathan along. I wish we could get another shot with the resources we have now and what we know now.”
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