Matters of Faith & Children

Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it. - Proverbs 22:6

Faith in God has always been a part of my life. Even when I walked away from nearly everything I'd done as right as a kid, a deep seated knowledge that God is real and part of my life never left me. As an adult who wants to raise my daughter in the ways of God without being legalistic, or have her believe she must condemn friends who don't have the same faith, I find that things are not black and white.

I've known this for a long time, but dang y'all, having a kid makes EVERYTHING feel like a giant gray area. Tonight she confided in me that she is going through what many of us would call a "crisis of faith", where she honestly isn't sure if she believes in God, and she's scared of what that could mean.

"What if we're worshiping nothing? What if we're wasting our Sundays worshiping absolutely nothing?"

Yet, at the same time, she requested three different prayer sessions as we were going to bed/saying goodnight. I know so well this doubt, this questioning and the fear that comes with it. I have been going through something similar for a while, and trying to explore more to find out what I do actually believe. But, how do you approach that with an 11 year old? Faith is so abstract, elusive and intangible.

For tonight, I reassured her that she would be okay. That faith is a big thing, with lots of big questions, and that part of faith is accepting that there's not always answers to those questions. At least half of those words were for me, and I'm fairly positive they didn't actually come from me. I certainly needed to hear that, and it seemed to act as a bit of balm for her as well.

I wonder and worry, as a parent, if I'm not confident in my own faith, then how can I raise her with confidence?

Where do I go from here to help Kiddo?




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