Trusting God With the Ones We Love Most

My 19 year old daughter was hiking alone in Washington State last month when things took a scary turn. She got lost on the trail. She lost cell service. Then her phone died.

Suddenly, she was completely on her own.

As a parent, those are the kinds of details that make your heart sink.

Thankfully, God was watching over her.

A family at a nearby RV park noticed her walking along the road and stopped to ask if she needed help. They loaned her a portable charger, and when her phone powered back on, she burst into tears. They didn't stop there. They drove her back to her hotel and made sure she got back safely.

When she told me the story later, I felt overwhelming gratitude.

Gratitude for God's protection.

Gratitude for the kindness of strangers.

Gratitude that the story ended the way it did.

Because the truth is, it could have ended differently.

As I processed everything, I found myself thinking about one of the hardest parts of parenting young adults.

You spend years preparing them.

You teach them.

You guide them.

You give them tools.

In my daughter's case, I've purchased many portable chargers, phone chargers, and backup chargers. We've talked about safety. We've talked about being prepared. Her brother was supposed to go with her but backed out last minute and she didn’t want to cancel her plans. So she went alone. To a small town outside of Seattle. By train.

Yet there comes a point when your child steps into the world on their own.

And no matter how much you've prepared them, you cannot control every decision, every circumstance, or every outcome.

That's hard.

When our kids are little, we hold their hands crossing the street. We buckle their seat belts. We know where they are every minute of the day.

Then one day they're adults, booking flights, taking trips, making decisions, and living experiences that don't include us.

That's where faith becomes more than a lesson we teach our children.

It becomes a lesson God teaches us.

A friend of mine from Fuller Seminary shared something that has stayed with me. She was talking about a difficult situation involving her daughter during college. Every instinct in her wanted to step in and fix it.

Then she felt God say something she would never forget.

“You have to let me build my resume with her. You can’t step in to save your daughter all the time because she needs to have references of what I have done in her life.”

In other words, there are moments when God wants our children to learn firsthand that He is faithful.

He is present.

He is trustworthy.

If we rush in every time to rescue them, we may miss opportunities for them to experience God's care for themselves.

That doesn't mean we stop being parents.

It means we recognize that God loves our children even more than we do.

Isaiah 41:10 says, "Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God."

Those words weren't only true for my daughter on a mountain in Washington.

They were true for me sitting hundreds of miles away, unaware of what was unfolding.

As parents, we pray. We guide. We prepare. We support.

Then there are moments when we have to place our children in God's hands and trust Him with the parts we cannot control.

I'm grateful my daughter learned some important lessons from this experience.

I'm grateful she is safe.

Most of all, I'm grateful for a God who watches over our children when we cannot.

And safe to say, solo hikes are off the table for a while.

Well, so she says.