Fortitude - an important inheritance

There's an old saying, "Life is hard . . . and then you die." Somewhat negative, but true overall.

Some people just seem to struggle with harder things than others. There's always the loss of parents, children growing up and leaving home, your health or that of your spouse deteriorating. Those are normal difficult things that EVERYONE experiences. But some people have harder things in their lives that they have to live through - the death of a child, a spouse becoming an invalid very young, divorce or unfaithfulness, their children being abused or falling into drug addiction or alcoholism. Some of these are becoming more common, but you still don't expect to experience them, while you pretty well know your parents are going to die in your lifetime.

Several of these tough situations that I'm aware of have been deeply on my heart lately. I've been interceding almost constantly for some of them. There seems to be so much abnormally painful stuff happening right now to people I love and care about.

I'm reading a book by James Dobson called, "Preparing for Adolescence - how to survive the coming years of change" that is intended for parents to use as a workbook with their children at around age 12 - 13. We got the book and accompanying workbook when we visited Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs this summer. I've decided Deanna and I are going on a retreat for a weekend, probably in November, to work through this book. It deals with all the issues facing children during puberty, helps explain what they will encounter, gives them tips on dealing with these issues, and opens the lines of communication between child and same-sex parent to talk openly about anything on the adolescent's mind. In the beginning, he gives an analogy of the child speeding along a highway from the town of Puberty to Adulthood (8 years away). Suddenly, there's a Flagman who stops the car and explains that a bridge has collapsed ahead leaving a huge drop-off into a canyon. You can't go back to Puberty. You have to press on to Adulthood, but how? The Flagman explains that if you drive very slowly, you'll see the drop-off before you fall into it, you can turn south and go around the canyon and get safely to the other side. The car is the child's life, the Flagman is Dobson, and the dark canyon that "many other young people have wrecked their lives by plunging down the dark gorge" into is hopelessness, inferiority, and a depressing feeling of worthlessness.

From what I've seen lately, many adults are heading down a road and drop into a dark canyon called "wrong thinking". I wonder if the second canyon is connected to the first. I wonder if your life as an adult is a measure of how well you navigated the canyon of adolescence.

I know that what I want Deanna to get out of this retreat with me and reading this book together is a closer relationship to me, a deep knowledge that she can trust me with ANY information and question, and the groundwork for a secure, well-adjusted young woman who realizes that everyone goes through what she's dealing with right now - maybe not all at the same time, but over a rolling several years. She is more valuable that words can express. She may not be physically perfect, but neither is anybody else. She IS who God created her to be, and it was no mistake.

I want to reinforce in her that her self-worth comes from God, not her friends. Dobson points out that Jesus chose as his disciples NOT the most popular men, but common people with common lives - they weren't exceptionally attractive or wealthy or witty. Most of them were working class grunts. He even chose a tax collector, the most despised of all Jews. Throughout history, God has continued to choose ordinary people to do extraordinary things for Him. Who the heck was Billy Graham? Where did he come from? He was a nobody from a hick town, but God used him to bring millions of people to Him. Mother Theresa was a simple, small-of-build woman - but she packed a powerful punch.

Money, good looks, and intelligence aren't what God is looking for. Those are the world's values. God wants workers with fortitude, people who know how to fight and pray, believers who can stand up to anything with Jesus at their side.

Fortitude is what I want to teach Deanna. And I want to be an example by exhibiting grace and strength in tough situations so that she sees the value of pushing through hard things in her life and experiencing the joy on the other side of adversity.

And I want to teach her to be a prayer warrior so when she's burdened by her own insecurities or the woes of the people she loves, she has a place to go, a place of rest, where she can lay her burdens down and walk away refreshed.

Like I pray I am.