To my parent friends with broken hearts.

Dear friend,

I know. you don't talk about it a lot. But I know. You wonder if she'll come back home. You want to know if he's safe. You wonder if they'll be OK. Our generation read all of the same parenting books. We subscribe to many of the same "truths". We've fallen in to using the same tropes. But the wonder and the worry and the pain and the hurt is still there.

Can I speak some hope into your life? How strong is your faith? I know. Your focus tends to be on his faith, or her faith, or their faith, or the lack of it. But let me ask you about your faith for a minute. Do you believe that your God will do what he says? Yes or no? Not because your answer is any factor on how well God will follow through with his promises. That's going to happen whether you believe it or not. The reason your answer is important is that your answer will be the difference between living in fear and frustration and living in Grace and Glory--- not for them, but for you. Your answer, your real answer, will mean all the difference between you living a life of love or continuing in condemnation. So know your answer. But know your real answer.

Because here is what your God promises you. (From Isaiah 43)

But now, God’s Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel: “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end— Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That’s how much you mean to me! That’s how much I love you! I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.

“So don’t be afraid: I’m with you. I’ll round up all your scattered children, pull them in from east and west. I’ll send orders north and south: ‘Send them back. Return my sons from distant lands, my daughters from faraway places. I want them back, every last one who bears my name, every man, woman, and child Whom I created for my glory, yes, personally formed and made each one.’”

* * *

Get the blind and deaf out here and ready— the blind (though there’s nothing wrong with their eyes) and the deaf (though there’s nothing wrong with their ears). Then get the other nations out here and ready. Let’s see what they have to say about this, how they account for what’s happened. Let them present their expert witnesses and make their case; let them try to convince us what they say is true. “But you are my witnesses.” God’s Decree. “You’re my handpicked servant So that you’ll come to know and trust me, understand both that I am and who I am. Previous to me there was no such thing as a god, nor will there be after me. I, yes I, am God. I’m the only Savior there is. I spoke, I saved, I told you what existed long before these upstart gods appeared on the scene. And you know it, you’re my witnesses, you’re the evidence.” God’s Decree. “Yes, I am God. I’ve always been God and I always will be God. No one can take anything from me. I make; who can unmake it?”

So maybe, just maybe, you can take a breath. Let your God do God things. And you do you things. Be a mom. Be a dad. Don't worry about bringing them home. Keep building a home they'll want to come home to. And keep loving your God in a way that God changes you. If that God thinks they need changing, don't you trust that God can get it done all on His own? I mean, seriously, if He can change me and He can change you, He can change anyone, agreed? In the mean time, love them for who they are, the same way you loved them the day you brought them home. Because your kids are still those kids.

Thus spake,

me