After the Parenting Passes

What to do with regret and guilt

Photo by Yogesh Patil on Unsplash

The sermon on parenting was biblical, but the pastor’s words hit home, and they hit hard. You’re an “empty-nester,” and you left with seven things you didn’t do as a parent. By the time you cross the parking lot, you’re drawing lines from those lacks to troubles and hurts in your adult children. This kind of regret and guilt goes deep, and it can easily turn into self-recrimination and self-hatred.

There are a few truths such Christians must take to heart and hold onto in such times.

1. Forgiveness

God’s forgiveness is real and all-encompassing. It really does apply to all your sin, including the ways you failed as a parent. The Bible doesn’t sugarcoat that, but Jesus enters into our lack with us, and he takes it upon himself at the cross. That’s why we are promised that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us (1 John 1:9). So the first thing we must do is say, “Yes, God. I did (or did not) do that. Please forgive me.” And then we must believe that he does, because he does. There really is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

2. Sovereignty

Then we must take our children and ourselves and our failures in hand and bring them to the foot of the cross, entrusting all of it to God’s sovereignty. The word “sovereign” means to be in charge of everything in your realm, as King. When you are God, this means you are sovereign over literally everything, which is how the Bible describes God. This means He is sovereign over even our mistakes and sins, over our weaknesses and our grievous transgressions, over the things we didn’t know to do, and the things we did know to do but failed to do. He is sovereign over all of it. We must believe this, and leave it all with Him.

3. Ignorance

We must also realize that we are limited in the extent of our knowledge. We don’t know all the reasons for why our children do what they do. I once heard of a story of a son who grew up in the church and lived a profligate life, and before the medicine had advanced, died young from AIDS. In the hospital, he told his father that he didn’t do anything wrong - that it had to be this way, for him to come to a saving faith in Christ. The point here is this: you don’t know the end of the story. Even if your child has gone before you, you don’t know what business they were able to do with God before they left. You don’t know the end of the story. God is still in the business of overcoming our failures and weaknesses, and in great mercy and grace, saving anyway. It is all, in the end, up to Him. Even our faith is a gift from His gracious hand.

4. Hope

God promises you and I that, in the end, every tear will be dried, and sorrow will no longer even exist (Revelation 21:1-4). This is incredible, considering some of the pains we might experience in this life. And yet such is the magnitude of the new life that awaits us. In the end, God will be clearly seen as both perfectly just and infinitely gracious. In this we hope, though we cannot yet see it. By this hope, and by faith in the God Who is still there, finishing what He started, we may relate to our adult children today with grace and even optimism. For God forgives; He is not done; He is in control; and in the end, He is infinitely gracious.