RELATIONSHIPS August 25, 2003 Issue

They have their own relationship with God

By Cali McClure

SEVERAL MONTHS BEFORE our first child was born, I decided to read some magazines with articles by experts on raising children. The author of one article stated with authority, "One should always ..., " and another author on the very same subject said, "One should never ...."

That did it! I needed guidance that was more consistent, more trustworthy. And that's when I decided that God, the great Father and Mother of the universe, was going to be my only child-raising expert. I reasoned that since God is the Creator, it's His job to take care of His creation. He would surely reveal to me the ideas I needed to be a loving and responsible parent, as well as to enjoy my children. I realized that all parent-and-child relationships are ordained by God, because He both creates and relates all. And because my children's origin was Spirit, I needed to think of them from a spiritual standpoint.

I had always loved the Bible account of Samuel's mother, Hannah, who was able to let her child go to serve God. She had wanted to have a child more than anything else in the world but had been unable to conceive. One day while she was in the temple praying, she made a vow to God that if she could have a child, she would "give him unto the Lord all the days of his life" (I Sam. 1:11). I was touched by Hannah's total release from personal possession of her son. I resolved that I, too, would try to remember that my children came from God and belonged to Him. They had their own relationship to God, and I knew I could trust that relationship. Anxiety or controlling on my part would only deny my trust in God's plan for them.