Family & Parenting
My children are grown and I still cannot stop steering their lives. How do I actually let go?
“For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD. And he worshipped the LORD there.”
Hannah had prayed for years for a child, and when Samuel was weaned she brought him to the tabernacle and lent him to the LORD for as long as he lived. This is the woman who wanted him most letting go of him earliest. The text does not pretend it cost her nothing. It treats the child as entrusted rather than owned, which is the only ground on which any parent lets go.
“And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.”
Paul says goodbye to the Ephesian elders he had lived among for three years, knowing he will not see them again, and the word he chooses is a commercial one: he deposits them with God for safekeeping. He does not leave behind instructions for every scenario. He hands over people he loves and cannot control to the only one who can actually keep them.
A path forward
Wait to be asked. Adult children stop consulting parents who volunteer and start consulting parents who do not. If you want influence at fifty, unsolicited advice is the fastest way to lose it.
Replace one piece of advice with one question this month. Asking how they landed on that keeps you in the conversation without putting your child in the position of defending themselves to you.
Take the worry to God in prayer each time it rises, instead of taking it to your child by phone. The urge to steer is usually anxiety looking for something to do, and prayer is the only place it can genuinely go.
Closing verse
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”
- Philippians 1:6
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