“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” — Jeremiah 1:5
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…” — Revelation 12:11
There’s something about watching the ocean that strips away the illusion of control. The tide comes in, the tide goes out — and no one can stop it. The waves of life hit our children the same way. We try to stop them anyway. It’s in our nature as parents to protect, to fix, to step between our kids and the pain headed their way.
But the longer we walk this road, the clearer some things become. We cannot stop the fire God may use to refine our children. We cannot interrupt the brokenness He may use to draw them close to Himself. And we cannot rescue them from the very thing He intends to use as their testimony.
This is humbling. And it’s hard.
We can pray. We can intercede. We can raise them, teach them, love them with everything we have. But we cannot be their Savior. Only Jesus can do that — and sometimes that work looks like a wilderness before it looks like a homecoming.
We cannot be their Savior. Only Jesus can do that.
Here’s the hard truth: a child’s testimony may include things we never wanted for them — choices we warned against, paths we tried to close off, pain we would have given anything to prevent. But if that very story is what brings them to their knees and into the arms of Christ, then it was never wasted.
It’s easy to pray, “Lord, they are Yours,” in a quiet moment. It’s much harder to live that out when we’re watching a decision unfold that we know will cost them something. A few days — sometimes a few hours — after surrendering them to God, many of us are right back to trying to control the outcome, to protect them from the very lessons we ourselves once had to learn the hard way.
But God keeps whispering a truth worth sitting with:
“You can’t protect them from the very thing I may use to bring them to Me.”
Lord, You see what we cannot see. You know the end of this story for our children, even when the middle terrifies us. Help us to trust Your refining fire more than our own ability to fix and control. Give us the strength to release them — fully — into Your hands, Your timing, and Your plans. And when their testimony finally comes, let it be a testimony of Your goodness, grace and love. Amen.