Yesterday was the second Sunday in Advent. Our good Father talked in his homily about the fear of God and what that means. It isn't the afraid-of kind of fear. It is the fear, born out of love, of doing anything that would separate us from God. Fear of God is a gift from the Holy Spirit. We want to strive to accept this gift in order to strengthen our relationship with Our Lord. Okay. What does this have to do with parenting our adult children you might ask? Read on and I will see if I can get the thought from my heart onto the page!
Any analogy we make from our own lives to try and understand our God is imperfect, incomplete, because we are too small to understand the enormity of God. A clover as representation of the triune God, for example. Similarly, any analogy we make to our own lives based on our relationship with God is just as incomplete and imperfect for the same reason-we are so small and God is so...big. However, we can and do make connections between our visible world here on Earth and our invisible world with our God to help us with life in both.
Often, the fear of God is compared to the 'fear' of young children of their parents. There is that all too brief time when our children wish to please us out of love instead of out of fear of punishment. When this time passes naturally in the development of the child we strive to instruct, love, and discipline them in a way that teaches them the beauty of a love that brings about this 'fear of mom'. Hopefully we all have experienced at least momentary success - you come home from getting groceries and the children have washed the dishes and tidied without being asked just because they want to do something nice or because they want to see and feel that pride and gratitude in your eyes. They do the right thing not because they will be punished if they don't but because it pleases you. They discovered the 'fear of mom'. They love you.
In our relationship with our adult children, it is fitting and proper that this 'fear' changes. Just like obedience, 'fear of mom' matures. The definition of obedience from our adult children becomes willingly seeking our advice and respecting our experience instead of doing exactly what we say. In a similar way, 'fear of mom' moves away from doing what we declared to be right. With luck and prayer, what they have come to believe is right and just is in line with what we believe to be right and just. But they have to do what it right and just because they made a decision to do what is right whether is pleases us or not. They have to own it for themselves. It becomes their own value system...it's not your father's Osmobile. Where my adult children are concerned, not all of our 'what is right' is the same. I wonder sometimes where their crazy idea about something or other came from. But if they own their beliefs and values and uphold those beliefs and values I have to respect that. We can have healthy, adult discussion about differences in our belief system in order to understand one another. But in the end, to maintain our relationship, out of love for each other, out of 'fear' of each other, we must accept and come to respect our adult children's lives. We don't have to agree; we don't have to pretend to agree; we don't have to like it. Sometimes it is going to make us proud; sometimes it's gonna make us sad.
God loves us unconditionally. Shouldn't we strive for the same with our children?
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