This morning I dropped off my daughter Lauren and her friend Emily at high school. High school. I have a daughter in high school. The drive over was fairly quiet. I asked Lauren and Emily how they were feeling about the day.
“Nervous,” they both answered.
I asked them what makes them most nervous … academics, social dynamics, schedule and busyness, the unknown?
“All of it,” they both answered.
The parking lot at Bowie high school was buzzing with people. Wait, there are males who drive cars going to the same school as my daughter? No one told me about that. Kids were streaming into the school from all directions … some looked confident, like they’d done this for years … some looked apathetic … some looked eager … some looked lost. When we got to the front drive, I kissed Lauren and told her I loved her. Then she and Emily got out and disappeared into the crowd.
As I drove away, I wondered what Lauren’s day would be like. Will she be confused about where to find her next class? Will she be able to connect with friends at lunch? Will she feel overwhelmed by all the homework that starts to pile up? Will she feel lonely, even with all those people around?
Wow, that was quite a different feeling than when I dropped her off at kindergarten. Both times I wanted to cry, but for different reasons. Today I had an overwhelming feeling of “God, she belongs to you, not me.” And, “she needs you, Lord, so please walk with her in such a way that she knows you are there with her.” These are the moments for which we teach our children the gospel. These are the moments when the rubber meets the road in life. How will what she believes about Jesus impact the way she approaches today … and all of high school? Lauren needs to know more than that Jesus forgives her sins so she can go to heaven in the future. She needs to know something about Jesus today. She needs to know that Jesus is her identity, her security, her significance, her helper, her friend, her advocate, her righteousness, her highest love, her guide, her adequacy. Jesus is and always will be Immanuel (God with us) to her.
I need to believe that too. Because I can’t control how Lauren’s day goes. I can’t make other students be nice to her. I can’t make her not feel anxious about AP Geometry. I can’t be there to give her a pep talk when she feels discouraged or inadequate. As a dad, I’ve got to believe the gospel too. The gospel tells me that I’m not in control, but a God who is a good Father is. The gospel tells me that I can know God is good, because he did not spare his own Son when it came to demonstrating his love. The gospel tells me that God is not distant, but always near to his people by his Spirit.
Strange. You raise your children so that they can be prepared to step out of the car on a morning like this and step into a broken, fast-paced, sometimes harsh world. But right as they are stepping out of the car, you want to say, “Hey, get back in. Let’s go home and have some cookies and watch Barney … maybe play some Go Fish.” You want to protect them from the very thing you’ve been preparing them for. You want to shield them from the very things that will drive them in faith to the gospel. Lord, teach me to trust you, not only with my own life, but with the lives of those I care about.
