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Can I Trust God With My Children?

On April 14, 2025

As a mom, do I have a control problem? Maybe. Do I have a responsibility problem? Definitely.

I’ve taken the StrengthsFinders assessment twice in the past twenty years; both times, responsibility was way up near the top. If I agree to do something, I will do it, and I will do it well, so help me God – or lose my sanity, my sleep, or my good sense in the attempt.

Raising teenagers makes me lose all of the above.

I tried so hard to do All the Good Parenting Things. I made them drink Kiefer, read countless books with them, prayed and played, showed and shared. I taught them to come when I called; I re-learned pre-algebra twice; I put limits on their screen time. I take my job so seriously. I am the Responsiblest Mom of them all.

And now I have four teenagers, with adulthood lurking around every corner, and I feel the desperate urgency looming over me that my time left with them is short. So Gil and I made an Adulting List that they must check off, and we are teaching them to drive, interview, clean, and budget. As they begin to make their own choices, I warn and cajole, nudge and prod.

*I’d like to point out that nobody in this house got cavities when I brushed their teeth and controlled their diet.*

Yet every time they feel lost or do something foolish or don’t show integrity, I feel responsible. Somewhere, at some time, I must have made a wrong parenting choice.

Do I feel more weight of responsibility because I am an adoptive mom? I chose these kids. I was responsible for plucking them out of the trajectory of their lives, giving them a new story. If they struggle with their identity, if they feel alone or rejected or out of place, and if that propels them to make a bad choice, it must be my fault. I pull back the curtains and peek under the rugs, searching for my responsibility.

So I ruminate. Maybe we should have come back to the States earlier. Or later. Perhaps we should have chosen a different schooling option. Maybe we should have moved to a different city, or a different school, or a different neighborhood. If only I’d read The Connected Child a few years earlier. If only we’d found that therapist four years ago. If only I could go back and emphasize this, tweak that, add a dash of this.

Of course, this does nothing to change anything about the present.

I decide they just need reminding. Oh, I must not have taught them that well enough. I must not have gotten through to them the previous fifty times. Obviously, I need to tell them again. In a different way. With a different emphasis.

This often doesn’t go well. “Don’t scold me, Mom,” he says, frustrated. Scold you? Here I thought I was giving you fantastic advice that plainly hasn’t registered yet.

So I try harder to keep my mouth shut, and all those unsaid words settle into my stomach and languish there, gurgling and squeezing.

Then, one morning, she comes bounding over to me with a giant lightbulb hovering over her head. “Mom! I realized that I have so much energy the next day if I don’t go to bed too late!” Or another time: “Mom! I realized that if I finish all my homework, my grade goes up!”

I wish I could say I responded with, “How lovely, dear. Good for you.”

But no. Instead, I deadpan (sarcasm oozing out of my pores). “Wow, how unfortunate no one ever told you that before.”

Seriously. If the reality is that they have got to figure these things out for themselves, why do I even try? Well, duh. Because I Am Responsible.

I can pretend that all this responsibility makes me a good mother, but what it really comes down to is that I don’t trust God with my children.

I’ve come a long way in learning to trust God with my own life. Over 48 years, I’ve come to a point of steady peace in his provision and his purpose.

I might not immediately trust him with whatever life throws at me, but again and again, I’ve learned to rest on what I know to be true. God is good and in control. He loves me. He knows what is best for me. I am convinced that no matter what I experience or how much of me has to die, resurrection is coming. I stake my life on this. It defines my existence.

But I do not trust God with my children. Because no matter how much I scour Scripture for reassurance, I find no guarantee that he promises their lives will be redeemed. There are no promises that they will have happy marriages, become contributing members of society, or avoid drugs-porn-gambling-divorce-abuse-prison. I lament with Jesus-loving friends who are a decade or two beyond me and grieving these exact things for their children.

And the hardest part? I cannot save my children’s souls. They are their own people. They must choose for themselves who they will serve. I can provide all the nurture, exhortation, and encouragement in the world, but at the end of the day, they will stand before God alone, without me.

I’ve told God, on more than one occasion, that this is unacceptable to me. God can’t expect me to spend twenty years raising these children, wringing out my heart and hanging it out to dry, and then be okay with the notion that they still may choose to turn their backs on him. That God, in his sovereignty, might not save them.

So instead, I, in my puny finiteness, choose to take matters into my own hands. I must be responsible for the outcome of my children’s souls.

Of course, when I write it down like that, it sounds incredibly stupid. But it doesn’t prevent me from trying. I try and I try and I try and I think that if I can just get this parenting thing right, I can save them.

Responsibility is an admirable quality until it becomes an attempt to be God.

I must accept the agonizing truth that these children have never been, and never will be, mine. And that’s not just because I adopted them. God gave them to me for a time to love and discipline, teach and nurture, but he knew I would be finite and imperfect. He knew that I wouldn’t make all the decisions correctly; he knew that there would be hundreds of circumstances outside my control; he knew that there would be many, many aspects of their story that would not be in my jurisdiction to write.

I am only part of their stories – granted, a big part, an important part, and it is right that I take it seriously. But I am not the author.

This doesn’t mean that it is sinful for me to bear the weight of concern for my children. I find it poignant that Paul lists his “concern for the churches” as part of the list of intense trials that he bears, alongside hunger, prison, and torture (II Cor. 11:28). And in contrast, he says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4). If Paul’s emotions can rise and fall based on the spiritual condition of his spiritual children, then certainly the same is true for all kinds of children.

But there is a place where my responsibility ends. I cannot, and never will be, the savior of my children.

Releasing my children to God’s story for their lives is, perhaps, the greatest struggle of trust I have ever faced or ever will. Yet somehow, I must. God may allow them to hurt or fail and make terrible mistakes to show them why they need grace and why they need him. Even then, I must accept that they may come to that point when they are flat on their faces and still do not choose him.

Yet God is still God. He is still good. He is still in control. And I can beat my fists against his chest and plead and scream and demand, but in the end, I must submit to the truth that he is the King of the Universe, and I am but the creation. Somehow, I must still trust him, even with my children. Where else would I go? He holds the words of eternal life.

Trust God with my children — *I stole this one from Eugene Peterson.*

Raising Up a Child in an Age of Deconstruction
Have I Failed My Children?
What Have I Done to My Children?

Conversations with Grace: Black History Month

By Amy Medina

On February 26, 2025

In Race and Diversity

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Grace (who is currently 19 and a freshman in college). Like the last time she and I did this, remember that her perspectives are her own and don’t represent all others like her (or even her siblings). But I know you will find her thoughts informative and interesting!

When you were a Tanzanian kid growing up in Tanzania with American parents, what did you know about American Black History? Did you feel any connection with it?

We read books as a family about the black struggle in America, like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and The Watsons Go to Birmingham. But I didn’t feel a connection to them. I remember thinking that Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas were really cool, but I was not African-American so they weren’t my people.

I knew about the East African slave trade because we visited museums in Zanzibar and Bagamoyo, which were places that were a part of the slave trade. It was flabbergasting to see that it really happened to people, because even now, as a history major, it’s amazing that we as a human race treated other humans like that. But East African slaves did not go to America. [They primarily went to the Middle East or were enslaved within Africa for exports of ivory or other goods.]

How did that change when you moved here?

[We moved to the United States in the spring of 2020, shortly before the George Floyd riots that summer.] When we first moved here, I was in Target walking around without Mom, and this guy who was an older white man in a motorized wheelchair, stopped me. He said, “I just want you to know that Black Lives Matter and I believe that.”

I said, “Thank you.” But I wanted to say, “But I’m African.” Because I didn’t feel a connection with the movement at the time.

People assume that I am African-American. I don’t have an African accent; I sound like my parents. My love for other accents may have gotten me into trouble because I do use African-American vernacular all the time. So I can sound as if I’ve been raised in an African-American home. But I don’t always have the heart to explain the entire story, so I let them go ahead and believe that.

When Kisa joined my school sophomore year, that changed a lot for me. [Kisa was an international exchange student from Tanzania.] She helped me to embrace that part of myself and be proud of my identity as a Tanzanian.

How do you see the distinction between African-American and African?

If you have an ancestry of your family coming here due to slavery, then that’s what I count as African-American. African-Americans have their own culture of music and food. There’s also the impact of GI Bills and other forms of racism that have affected them. Things like gang life have been a part of African-American culture but not African immigrants.

African immigrants (like me) have a different culture. They stay much more African.

American Sprinkled with African: Conversations with Grace

By Amy Medina

On September 3, 2024

In Third Culture Kids

My Grace is now 18, has started college, and is studying to become a middle-school history teacher. I think she’s pretty fascinating, and want more people to get to know her. So she agreed to let me interview her for my blog. Just remember that she represents only herself, not all adopted kids, or even her siblings. And as she continues to process her childhood, her answers to these questions will continue to evolve. But she gives a great snapshot of her unique life, and I know you’ll enjoy it!

What was it like to grow up Tanzanian in Tanzania by American parents?

I’m sure that when I was younger, it didn’t feel as weird as it does looking back on it now. I knew other kids that were being raised like that, so I was like, “That’s normal.” Uh, no. No, it’s not!

As I grew up, like the last few years we were in Tanzania, I started realizing that I was treated differently by my Tanzanian classmates because I was from Tanzania, but that was the only thing that we had in common. I wasn’t fluent in Swahili; I had an accent from 10,000 miles away; I knew a lot about American culture and not Tanzanian culture. Sometimes I was subject to minor bullying. It wasn’t like I felt attacked; it was more like insults….. but that’s also because middle schoolers are awful. [And yet she wants to teach middle school!]

But also, being at Haven of Peace Academy really helped. Just because, even if they weren’t adopted, there were so many other kids like me there. There were kids who were from a different culture coming to live in Tanzania, which is kind of like my experience since I grew up in a culturally American home. Of course, I had great Tanzanian food and we listened to Tanzanian music but other than that, it was very American. So having missionary and international kids at the school made me feel that there were way many other people like me around me.

In moving to the U.S. I realized, Whoa, there are more Black people here than I realized. So many ethnicities are counted as “Black” but there are so many different experiences represented. A Nigerian who moved to America as a college student will be living a crazy life of cultural shock. But other kids who are Nigerian and grew up here are completely different. It helped me to realize that there are so many different Black experiences in the U.S. Yes, my story is weird but that’s true of so many people in America.

Worth Your Time (March 2024)

By Amy Medina

On March 27, 2024

In Book Recommendations, Worth Your Time

Hey readers,

Here’s my recent round-up of books and articles to read. If you do, let me know what you think!

Keep Complaining to God. Just Don’t Ignore Him by Drew Dyck

“What explains why some leave while others stay? Sometimes the only difference I could see is what they did with their trials. The first group ran away from God while the second ran toward him. Instead of letting doubt and disappointment fester in darkness, they dragged it into the light. They joined the great biblical tradition of prophets who expressed their grievances to God, often in harsh and accusatory language.”

Make Your Life Count: 12 Rules for Teens by John Piper

7 Parenting Errors That Can Influence Adult Children to Leave the Faith by Q. O. Helet

“I can easily identify many things we did—or did not do—that may have contributed to our sons’ departure from the faith. I hope to see others avoid such an outcome. In that light, here are seven parenting errors that can influence adult children to turn their back on Christ.”

The State of the Culture, 2024: Or a glimpse into post-entertainment society (it’s not pretty) by Ted Gioia

Whoa, this is fascinating and scary and super important: “The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds, and must be repeated.

It’s a huge business, and will soon be larger than arts and entertainment combined. Everything is getting turned into TikTok—an aptly named platform for a business based on stimuli that must be repeated after only a few ticks of the clock.”

Who Would I Be If I Was Happy? By Trevin Wax

“We live in a time of self-creation. The traditional markers of identity that once came from outside ourselves—from our family or friends or community or past—are viewed as subpar, even repressive. We’re supposed to chart our own course, to look deep inside to discover our desires and define ourselves as we determine.

This way of life sounds exhilarating at first, but the result is fragility. What happens when we adopt the therapeutic assumptions of our age, when we look into our hearts and find only failures and frailty? Many of us begin to define ourselves by our maladies, to base our identities in suffering.”

Books:

What White Adoptive Parents Should Know about Transracial Adoption by Melissa Guida-Richards

This was such a helpful, insightful book–it really is a must-read for anyone who has adopted transracially (or is thinking about it).

Being Elisabeth Elliot: Elisabeth’s Later Years by Ellen Vaughn

I wrote about Part 1 of this biography a couple of years ago here at A Life Overseas. Part 2 did not disappoint. What a fascinating look into what was going on in Elisabeth’s life during the time she wrote the books that influenced me so much.

My garden has started blooming. Happy Spring to you all!

Have I Failed My Children?

By Amy Medina

On March 1, 2023

In Adoption, Parenting

“It’s such a shame that they failed two of their children.”

I was in college, and my friend was referring to a Christian family with adult children, two of whom had gone off the rails into drugs and unwed pregnancy.

My friend had young children of her own, and as someone several years ahead of me, she was a mom I greatly admired. She and I both knew that she would certainly not fail her children. I tucked away this lesson: My children’s choices would be a reflection of me.

***

Around the same time, I attended a large children’s ministry conference where a seminar speaker declared that ADHD was not a real condition – a child who couldn’t pay attention or sit still was the sad result of bad parenting. As an elementary teacher, I suspected the speaker was wrong, but it didn’t stop me from being marinated in the idea that I was responsible for my children’s behavior.

“First-time obedience” was the mantra of my era of Christian parenting. None of this “count to three” stuff; you were not a good parent if you had to ask twice. If they didn’t obey, it was on you. Being a responsible, perfectionist person, I took this seriously. I was up for the challenge.

When I first became a parent, this worked. I’d been trained as a teacher. I knew how to hold children to high expectations without raising my voice or losing my cool. And my stubbornness could match the most strong-willed of children. I remember a fellow mom responding with amazement at how quickly my kids complied when summoned from the playground. Yep. I was not going to fail my children. No siree.

It worked, that is, until it didn’t work. Then it became a dumpster fire. And demanding “first-time obedience” became the gasoline that made the fire explode. With one child in particular, the more I dug in my heels and expected obedience, the more the opposite happened. As I increased the consequences, so did my child’s unhinged behavior.