We all have dreams for our children that they would flourish and be healthy and successful. But what happens when they are not? When failure looms over your legacy, there might be victory around the bend.
The decisions and mistakes our adult children make have a much bigger impact than the decisions and mistakes they made when they were younger. Parents can feel the weight of those decisions deeply. As we wait for our kids to “get their act together” we might be missing the bigger point.
When Failure Looms Over Your Legacy: Know the Path You Are On
We should not let our children’s path become our own.
Success is not defined by having no problems. It is shown by how we navigate said problems.
The trail our children are blazing likely does not look like ours and it shouldn’t. They are their own unique individual, created by God for His purposes.
Examining why their failure hurts so much might reveal the need to let go of our plans, entrusting that God’s perfect, sovereign plans trump our plans and the plans of our children. God is faithful … even with all our mistakes … and theirs.
When Failure Looms Over Your Legacy: Know the Definition of Success
We can be prone to believing that we are a failure when we have an adult child who is struggling. But maybe their struggling is a sign of success, after all.
Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was stupid and not capable of learning anything. Pretty dismal outlook.
Edison was fired due to being non-productive from his first two jobs. Sometimes what looks like non-productivity might be a genius in the making.
When Edison failed 1,000 times in his invention of the light bulb, he said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
It might be the 999th time one of our children has struggled, about to finally see victory in their next step. Or it might be that we don’t see the victory we hoped for on this side of Heaven.
But the One Who leaves the 99 sheep to find the lost sheep is capable of doing so again and again. And He redeems every bit of our mistakes for His glory.
When failure looms over your legacy, remember that God holds it all in His hands and He sees the bigger picture. Now that is a beautiful sight to behold.
