Holding on Loosely

The sun had just risen on a beautiful south Alabama October day. (This means that it was sunny and 85 for all of you who aren't privy to the average temperatures of our odd climate.) I was getting J up and dressed for his first trip to the zoo and pumping him up with tidbits of information on all he'd see. The lions, the tigers, the bears! Oh my! On the drive, J entertained us all with impersonations of dogs and bears and, everyone's favorite, the monkeys. 

As J and his Pa explored the South American bird exhibit, I caught myself trying not to grab him away for fear that he might touch something germ infested. When the birds got old and our group began moving towards bigger and more carnivorous creatures, I felt that ever present urge to pick J up. To protect him, as if I could do anything more than the twelve foot tall wall could. My daddy, who was very good at fostering independence in his children, could sense it. He was constantly telling me, "Just follow him and see where he goes." As I'm standing ankle deep in playground mulch and wrestling a tantruming toddler who has absolutely no intentions of swinging in the baby swing, my daddy gently reminds me to 'let him go.'

Let him go. 

Isn't that the hardest thing a mother can do? When they learn to walk, we hold their little hands as long as they'll allow. When they start practicing their independence and walking by themselves, we use our own bodies as human forcefields to protect them from bumps and scrapes. We don't want to let them go. We know what's going to happen. They are going to fall. They are going to fail.

As a teacher, I wish more mothers would allow their children to learn to fail, but as a mother, I know it's very hard to chose to let your child make their own mistakes. Lessons learned 'the hard way' are oftentimes the lessons that leave the most lasting impression, but it's a difficult thing to watch your child make mistakes that you know are going to hurt them. We are hardwired to push our children towards success. Failure isn't something that we want to see our children encounter, but we're lying to ourselves if we believe that they will never have to feel what it's like to not be good enough. It will be beneficial to our children if we make it a point to let them learn what it feels like to fail and how to handle the emotions that inevitably follow.

As Christians, we have a responsibility to allow our children to experience failure and teach them to turn to Jesus when what they bring to the table just isn't enough. Children need to know that what they are will never be enough without The One who makes them whole, and isn't that our one most important role as their parent? As my new bible study leader said, "We continually struggle with letting them go, but they're not even really ours to begin with." Our most important responsibility as a parent is to raise our children up in a way that is glorifying to God. Teaching your children to fall at His feet when it seems like their world is falling apart is a great place to start. 

If I'm telling myself the truth, I have had an internal struggle between holding on and letting go for as long as I've been a mother. I am always debating whether I should hold his hand and protect him or let him go and let him explore. In the short time that I've been a parent, I've come to realize that parenthood is about continually letting go and the emotions that come along with it. Each milestone has been a celebration but it's also been marked with tears. From the big milestones like first steps and first haircuts down to the small things like changes in diaper size, a mother's world is a hodgepodge of bittersweet moments. And I'm constantly reminded that these little milestones are going to gradually be replaced with much bigger, and harder to handle, life events like driving, college, and marriage. These moments are like water slipping through cupped hands...you can try to hold on, but eventually your hands will be empty.

We are in a constant state of holding on loosely and always letting go, but we will never have to worry about what happens when we 'Let Go' as long as we teach them to 'Let God.'

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

Our society: Christians are bigots and we accept everything but God.

Reading the news (loosely used) posts
on social media can easily leave you despondent and sad these days. Even when you see posts that should make you happy, like people lifting up Christianity, all you have to do is scroll through the comments for a little while to lose your short lived smile. Case in point, a picture of a GOP Presidential candidate holding up a sign that says 'I am a Christian' quickly got him labeled a 'bigot.' I went from optimistic to tearful in about two seconds flat.

How is he a bigot? Because he's a Christian? Because he has conservative and yes, Christian, views? Do we really live in a world where we aren't allowed to have our own religious views without being labeled? Bigotry is the act of being intolerant of the views of others...not the single act of having an opposing view. Since we're throwing words around, I've got one, too: hypocrite. Hypocrisy is the act of having moral standards or beliefs to which one own's behavior does not conform, and I am sure that calling someone a bigot for simply holding a different view than yours is a prime example of hypocrisy. Simply being a Christian cannot make a person a bigot.

So why the labels? The biggest reason, in my opinion, is that society has a skewed view of Christianity. I think, for the most part, the most vocal non-Christians believe that Christians are arrogant, holier-that-though, bigots. Part of this is human nature. We as humans are naturally sinners and we're worldly, prideful creatures. Non-Christians hear that they are sinners and incapable of ever being 'good enough' and immediately they rebel. The fact so many of the non-Christians with this clouded, negative view of Christianity are very open and vocal with their opinions only compounds the negative impact that they can have on our witness to the world. 

Another (harder to talk about) reason that the world's view of Christians is clouded is that we as Christians have done a poor job of being the body of Christ. We've been complacent, for the most part, and the world has risen up to meet us. Many people are pushed away from Christianity by Christians, the very people that are supposed to be leading others to Christ. For example, I read about how Justin Bieber has discovered Jesus Christ and wants to model his life after Him. As a high school teacher, I see students every day who are trying to model themselves after celebrities,  and I was ecstatic to see one of those celebrities admitting that he needs Jesus and wants to live his life for Him...and then I read the comments. There were so many Christians who were saying things like, "I'll believe it when I see it" or "all he knows is the liberal, love-everything-and-everybody version of Christ." Is that really our job as Christians? To question every new believer's authenticity? I'm sure it's not, and we need to do a better job of being the body of Christ and nurturing new Christians. 

I recently spent some time reading and praying over a few verses in Ephesians explaining how a follower of Christ should live. I was surprised and humbled by many of the guidelines. As many of my readers know, I asked Jesus to come into my heart when I was very young. I lived as a 'Christian' for fifteen years before I realized that I was completely wrong about what it meant to really be a Christian and what it really looks like to live as a Christian. Christianity is not about being perfect, it's about recognizing that you will never be perfect and that you are in desperate need of God's Saving Grace. I think that Christians, as a whole, are doing a poor job of displaying the humility that it takes to carry yourself as a recognized sinner every day. 

What I think this (increasingly non-Christian) society needs to understand is that just because we love someone doesn't mean that we have to accept their sins...and that accepting their sins as 'the way they are' is definitely not loving them. Especially if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Christ has a love for us that surpasses all knowledge, but he will still deny us in front of The Father if we do not accept Him into our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior. This sets an example for us, I think. We are told to love our neighbors as more important than ourselves, but that means we are to love them enough and so much that we don't sit by and unconcernedly watch them sinning.

And don't even get me started on the 'Christians' who openly condone sinning in the name of 'acceptance.' You can't watch a talk show without seeing sin being openly celebrated and excused by celebrities saying, "If that's what makes him happy, who am I to stand in his way?" Really? Don't you think you are opening yourself up for interpretation there? There are a lot of things that make a lot of people happy that are not okay even by this society's low moral standards. Some people are sexually attracted to animals, so "who are we to stand in his way" if someone wants to marry his shih tzu? Do you see what kind of terrible turns that road can lead you down? Regardless of your religion, society CANNOT keep this up; we have to draw a line somewhere.We need to stop sinning by silence and hiding behind 'don't judge lest ye be judged.' Those verses explain that you must remove your own sin before helping your neighbor to remove his, not that we should ignore our neighbor's sin completely under the guise of 'acceptance.' We also need to stop using God's Grace as an excuse to keep sinning. Yes, God loves you no matter what and yes, he will forgive you an infinite amount of times, BUT you have to genuinely ask got His forgiveness. Perpetually living in sin and occasionally (and casually) asking God to forgive you for those sins misses the mark completely.