The love of a parent 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 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 they are bad ones.
A couple come to my mind. They are church leaders and wonderful parents. Some years ago they sat with their sixteen-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 loving you.”

I am sure that those parents would willingly have 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.

The boy in the parable of the prodigal son was capable of making choices and does so - turning 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 woman will say, “If only we’d had daily devotions with our children”, and another will whisper, “Perhaps we forced our faith on them too much.” The guilt is gut-wrenching, all-pervasive, and sometimes causes us to freeze in fear for our children.
There are thousands of parents who feel like this. Parents of teenagers, parents of twenty-somethings, and elderly parents whose middle-aged children are still managing to break their hearts.

So many parents are carrying a heavy load of guilt they have no right 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.

And what if we could have been the perfect parents? Adam and Eve had the perfect father and lived in the perfect environment but they chose a way their father didn’t want them to go. In fact much of the Bible shows God, the perfect parent, saying to his children, ‘Why are you turning your back on all that I have taught you?’

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.
Rob Parsons
Chairman and Founder of Care for the Family
Adapted from Bringing Home the Prodigals by Rob Parsons, published by Hodder & Stoughton.
Rob Parsons will be touring the UK with Getting Your Kids Through Church Without Them Hating God
throughout November. He will be at the Reading Hexagon on November 23. For more information see www.gyktc.org.uk or call 029 2081 0800 to book tickets or for more information.