Homewords – Fall 2004

One of the hardest parts of parenting is letting go. Each season in our children’s lives gives us ample opportunity to practice relinquishing them to try out the lessons we have taught them. These past few months have been a test in letting go for me and I have to admit there have been times when I have had to sit on my hands and bite my tongue. God has given our seventeen year old daughter, Shiloh, a heart for the children living in the inner city of Phoenix. She has volunteered on a weekly basis in the Kids Club and in summer camps for several years. This summer she had the awesome privilege of spending twelve weeks as an intern at this inner city ministry. Her responsibilities included five weeks of inner city camp, a trip to an orphanage in Mexico and a trip with kids to Northern Arizona. All of this sounded pretty benevolent and benign at the outset. However, it was the daily trips to the housing projects, neighborhood hangouts and trailer parks to register kids for camp that began to make me nervous. The late night and early morning picking up and dropping off of kids at addresses inhabited by unemployed, questionable adults that made me wonder if we were being reckless and negligent parents. After one of my gentle, but urgent pleas with Shiloh to please be careful and make sure a huge guy went with her, Shiloh reminded me of a Bible verse she and I had memorized together. If God is for us, who can stand against us? (Romans 8:31). And then with much excitement, she added “Mom, all my life you have taught me about a big God, now is my chance to see for myself.” Of course, she was right and God is faithful. God gave her supernatural strength to endure a summer full of 18 hour days, extraordinary patience for kids who had more demands for love than she had supply, extreme creativity to relay the love of a Heavenly Father to children who had no earthly example, confident courage to “cop knock” day after day on the door of a little boy who lived with nine adults and hadn’t been back to camp since the first day, extraordinary boldness to be the only petite, blond in a sea of faces – holding her own and gaining the respect of all. Since our children were born, our prayer has been that they would have a vibrant faith of their own. We have learned that a big part of that depends upon our willingness to get out of the way, relinquish control and entrust them to God. After all, He is a much better parent that we are. Here’s to letting go and letting God, Love, Darcy ©copyright 2004 Darcy kimmel