I am being followed by a parallel. It sneaks up on me, walks with me, waits for me, whispers to me, haunts me. Each day it grows larger in reality and imposes its presence upon me. There is no ignoring it. It will not go away.

Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Beginning with hopes and dreams, a heart brimming with the best intentions, and a will for self-sacrifice, parents launch into this lengthy project with the idea of a good outcome and wholesome rewards. But what if all does not go according to plan? What if the youngster, in spite of all you do and say, decides to follow a different path that includes bad choices from a rejection of apparent good sense and reasoning? Some youngsters seem able to learn only from their own mistakes. The good parent will undoubtedly seek to protect their child from harm and moderate the impact of those mistakes. A carelessly broken window may be paid for by the temporary confiscation of the ball, or some contribution deducted from the pocket money, rather than the full cost of a replacement window. However, there comes a time when the youngster, now approaching adulthood, in stubborn defiance of parental wisdom, will simply learn no other way than to experience the full impact of harm in order to revise his choices. And some bad choices can be extremely harmful indeed.

This world operates on a fundamental principle of cause and effect. Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When it comes to human behaviour, we know that actions bring about consequences.

A parent no longer with authority nor the means by which to stop the action must suffer the anxiety of anticipating the consequence, often incurring the breakage of earlier hopes and dreams, and the grief of their eventual loss. In Singapore at this very moment a 25 year old is shortly to face the gallows, his heart broken mother back in Australia pleading the government of Singapore for clemency. Singapore has said there will be no clemency. This mother had been unable to stop her son from his one incidence of drug trafficking, most likely having no prior knowledge of it, and not only must he pay the price but so must his poor mother through her grief also. All her hopes and dreams for her tiny newborn son have now come to this.

So what is the parallel that will not leave me alone?

As I watch my almost adult son make choices less than wise, albeit nothing like the one above, and from experience know their outcome will not serve him well, I have to let him learn the hard way and reap what it is he sows… just as our Heavenly Father must watch all of us do just the same, including me as well. What kind of children are we to Him? Do we listen to His wisdom and do as He bids us? At every turn in dealing with my son, I hear our Father whispering to me too. If I can suffer from what my son is doing, how much grief am I giving Him over what I do that is not His will for me? I am a caring parent, and I am our loving Father’s child. I look to Him on both accounts and see the reflection of my pain mirrored there in Him… for it is His as well. From both perspectives, this parallel exists in every little detail and I can not escape from it.