Mamas in the Middle

There was a woman who lived in evil days.  She and her husband clung to their faith--not perfectly (it is so hard when everyone around you is running from God), but enough to know that their miracle baby belonged to God and enough to try to raise him up to know and honor his Maker.  

But the miracle baby didn't want to know and honor his Maker.  He absorbed enough of his parents' faith to make him keep to the externals (because the externals were of benefit to him), but his heart was wild and his appetites ruled him.  

His mother pleaded with him to choose wise companions, but he didn't.  She warned him about loose women, so he married one.

And then things really went wrong.  

He gave up almost everything he had ever been taught about life and godliness.  His parents helplessly watched and grieved and prayed as he partied himself into oblivion.  He bragged about his amazing self and created a stench all over the county.  He made promises he couldn't keep and betrayed his friends.  He mistreated his wife and made so many enemies around town that out of revenge, they killed her.  

Even then his selfishness was not satiated. 

Everywhere he went, he led with his pride and his anger and his lust, stirring up strife and hatred and war and danger for himself and everyone whose life touched his.

And I picture his mother watching her boy all the while in dismay and disbelief--this extraordinary baby grown gluttonous fiend--and trying to reconcile the two dichotomous beings in her mind.  

Her precious, protected boy--now wasted and laying waste.  

Her God-sent, God-blessed gift, profaning himself and sowing destruction on others with his mouth and his hands.

The beautiful boy who had sat at her knee in the light of her pure mother's love--now more apt to be lying with his head in the lap of a prostitute. 

The miracle baby in the story was Samson.  

His life is laid out in all its hair-raising detail in the book of Judges, but buried in a tiny parenthetical phrase is a jewel of truth I had never noticed before now.

"His father and mother had no idea that God was behind this." (Judges 14:4) 

God was behind this?  This what?  

This giving-over of a privately consecrated life to all manner of public wickedness?

This hideous profaning of a beautiful gift?  

Step by ugly step?  In the sight of God and man...and mother? 

God was behind this?  


That is exactly what it says. 

The One who sees all, knows all, loves perfectly, and judges rightly did not prevent Samson from gorging himself on folly.  

Because in his case, it both accomplished the judging of the evil Philistines, (Judges 14:4) and it got Samson to the point where, after ignoring God for most of his life, he was finally humble enough to call on the Lord again. (Judges 17:28) 

I read the story of Samson this evening with my boys.  They were horrified and fascinated, just like I was when I read it as a child, but tonight I met the ancient account with the sinking feeling that there might be nothing I can do to preserve some of my children from living it to some degree--that they might one day either be devoured by the culture we live in or by the desires of their own hearts.  

I have children who are ruled by their passions too--some because their minds are clouded and torn by the trauma of their early childhood, and some because they are dancing to the siren song only heard by the exceptionally gifted and strong.  

I have children who are in a constant battle between what they know and what they feel deeply.  I have tasted the pain of the chaos that tempts them and the sting of the grief they feel in the aftermath.

But I cannot turn their wills any more than I can turn the wind. I can speak truth but I cannot make them believe it. I can lead them, but I cannot make them follow.


And if they throw their lives to the wind?  What will I do?

What if that is what God allows for one of my children?  Can I not trust that He will see us through?  

Easy is never promised.

Look at where He took Job.

Look at Jacob's ugly path to sanctification.

At Joseph's years of rejection and uncertainty.

At Elizabeth's and Sarah's years of shame.

At Paul's bloody past.

At Rahab's disgrace and Naomi's life of desperation and bitterness.

Look at where God took His own Son.

But I also know that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.  And I know God loves my family more than I do.

So if some of my children walk a path that is bloody and circuitous and uncertain, will I live in fear and despair, or fight for joy and keep walking by faith? 

Will my desperation drive me away from the only source of strength and hope I have ever known, or will it make me cling harder to the Rock that is higher than I?

I know God to be good and wise.  Loving toward all He has made.  Patient and long-suffering.  Forgiving.  Gentle and kind beyond measure.
Scripture overflows with His beauty and love. 


 He has promised to work in and through all things for His glory and the good of His children.

Can I not trust the One who created my children, loves them, and put them in my home--to do right by them?  

Does He promise that I will like what that looks like?

Will I always understand the wisdom of a God who sees beyond my horizons and exceeds my depth by endless fathoms?  

The beginning of a thing rarely looks like the middle and the middle is not the end. 

Can I count it a kindness that He carries the knowledge of what He is doing in our story because He knows it would crush me to try?

I cannot reconcile by love or by logic why some of my children are walking a hard road, or what my part is in it.  I think of the hours and years of loving and teaching and praying I have done, and my honest prayer is that they would nestle in to the heart of God and live there. 

But if they don't, may I remember--

"His father and mother had no idea that God was behind this."

 And have the courage to wait.

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