LETTING GO OF OUR (HIS) CHILDREN Part 2 ‘Enabling versus Helping’

 

“Letting Go” means to entrust into the hands of the Lord, to surrender control of, to relinquish power over, and to trust the Lord with.

Only in Letting Go will our minds, emotions, wills, find rest and cease to struggle.

 

In our last three blogs, we have discussed the importance of “Letting Go” of others in order to experience peace, rest, and grace for our souls. We understand, it isn’t easy because we were trying to get our needs met through these relationships, but our Lord desires to fill ALL of our NEEDS and LONGINGS within our souls, which others can’t and won’t. Through reading these blogs, we have also learned what it means to let go, the process of letting go, and what it looks like when we let go. In letting go of our children (His children), we discussed how even in our ‘Good Intentions’ to help our children in the flesh, we can do more damage than good. This brings us to another challenge we struggle with, that is to know when we are enabling our children or when we are really helping them.

 

Firstly, let’s look at what it means to enable. This definition came from a parent who learned this lesson the hard way. She enabled her son over and over again until he couldn’t make his own decisions without her. So he drank and drugged his life away, eventually ending up in prison without her.

 

Enable means, to do for another person what they are capable of doing for themselves… but I won’t teach them. To enable a person says in essence…

“You are not capable or smart enough to make this decision, figure out the right answer, do this task correctly without my input, so you need me to do it for you or tell you what to do.”

 

In other words, I am rejecting you and your abilities because you aren’t as capable as I am. Parents always think if I do it for them, or tell them what to do instead of teaching them research skills to find their own answers, it will make life easy for them. True, but how many children are paralyzed when their parents aren’t around to do it for them or think for them? I have spoken to countless children and adults who state, “My mother or my father won’t let me or they did it for me, so I never learned how to do it for myself.” Or, “I’m not sure what to do, my parents always made the best decisions for me.” Grown men and women are crippled because of being enabled. Enabling really is not about the child; it is really about the parent because:

• I don’t want them to suffer.
• I don’t want them to go through what I went through.
• I don’t want them to lack in anything.
• I want them to grow up to be what I feel they are capable of.
• What will people think about me if my child doesn’t succeed or be what I think they should be?
• *** I NEED TO FEEL NEEDED! (Co-Dependency)

 

Well Tresca, if you say I have been enabling my child and not helping them, then what does it mean to help my child?

To help means to do something for a person who doesn’t have the ability, capacity, or has severe limitations they can’t do something for themselves, even if you taught them.

 

Secondly, there is a word that comes to mind that our Father asks us to do with His children and that is the word, train. Train means, ‘to instruct, discipline, guide, teach a person.’ One of my favorite models of parenting I taught parents to use was Love and Logic (online resources). It helps children learn from their choices. Using Love and Logic skills, parents are empathetic and lovingly guiding their children and teenagers through the challenges of life. Our Father uses this technique on us all the time. He lays out choices before us: life or death, flesh or spirit, Christ or the Evil One, sin or peace, fear or faith. We get to choose. He also explains the consequences so we know ahead of time what will happen if we make wrong choices. When or if we do, He talks to us about the choice we made and we talk about whether another choice should have been considered. Then, we face the consequences of our actions, without condemnation, only repentance. What an Amazing Father He is! I watched the documentary, “The Heart of Man” and it is too powerful to even begin to describe. I was able to see how sin is always at the door of our souls to lure us away from the Truth and our Father’s Life, into folly and temporal pleasures. The Father in the movie wrote to his son the word “Timshel” on the violin he created for them to play and enjoy together which means, ‘Thou Mayest.’ In others words ‘You can if you will, I have made you FREE to CHOOSE, because I LOVE YOU, but sin stands at the door and knocks for you.’ The gift every parent must give to their children is the freedom to choose. A parent’s job is to teach, instruct, and tenderly chasten them, but never manipulate, speak harshly, make them feel worthless, or bribe them… is to control them.

 

Please remember, EVERY SOUL BELONGS TO THE LORD. ALL OF US WERE CREATED FOR OUR LORD’S PURPOSE. Many of our children are hindered from fulfilling the purposes of our Father’s heart because of our Good Intentions and Enabling them. HE CAME TO BEAR WITH THEM, HOLD THEM, AND CARRY THEM THROUGH LIFE THROUGH US… THAT’S HIS JOB, NOT OURS… if we would LET HIM…  please LET GO AND LET HIM.

 

 

Finally, in our last blog, we were made aware, we don’t know the timetable our Father has for our loved ones to change and become what He created them to become… He knows! If we are not careful, the pain, struggles, and failures in their lives may be the ones He is allowing to bring them back into His arms, so they will trust and depend on Him. So Let Go… and pray for them, entrust them into His hands. HE LOVES THEM MORE THAN WE EVER COULD. His plan is always for our good and never for our harm. And, sometimes, when we TRUST HIM, HE GIVES THEM BACK TO US, WHOLE, AS HE HAD ALWAYS INTENDED… ONCE WE LET GO!

 

Prayer: Papa, thank you, for teaching me your ways. Your ways are so much higher than my ways, just like your thoughts are so much higher than mine. Make this message real in my heart so that I don’t hinder the beautiful work you are doing in the ones I love, especially YOUR CHILDREN. Amen