FAMILY HOPES, DREAMS & EXPECTATIONS

Springtime brings fresh air, buds breaking out of winters’ hold and one of my favorite seasons…Baseball. I love sitting in my lawn chair on the sidelines with grandparents, friends, family and my cooler filled with our picnic dinner. What could beat watching our two boys play little league baseball for a family memory. That’s the picture of my husband, Stan & me.

We were blessed to live in a small town in the Central Coast of California. It’s one of those kind of places that you go to the PTA meetings with the same parents as those who you share the sidelines of local parades, sports events, fundraisers, school board meetings, craft shows, church services, farmer’s markets and concerts in the park. It is small town Americana! It’s enhanced by great weather, beautiful beaches nearby and a drivable distance to water and snow skiing. We chose it as the best place to bring our greatest investments, our sons, to live and grow up.

It was how I imagined our lives to be with having sons. I saw us as involved parents in the community, school, church, scouts, sports and all that a small town life would offer. There would be a sense of belonging and familiarity just like what we both had grown up with back in the mid-west.

I remember the first time we went into our local Taco Bell after we moved to Templeton. We got into line, and were waiting to order, when all of a sudden Drew turned in surprise and said, “Mom, I know that kid over there. He goes to my school!” He just couldn’t believe that he would see someone that he knew.

In the LA area we had moved from, that would have never happened. It was the first realization that we were in a smaller community network where the familiar would become the norm. It reminded me of the mid-west town Stan came from, Shamrock, Texas. Where there are no strangers and everyone knows everything about each other.
In Los Angeles whenever I took the kids with me, there would be a routine of safety checks as we shopped. The boys had to hold onto the shopping cart at all times, and speaking to strangers was not encouraged. They could only play out in the yard if an adult was accompanied them. It was the same with riding their bikes. If going to a park, we would go with them and stand and watch over them and their every move. Not a bad thing to do, but the motivation was to make sure they were not kidnapped.

As time went on, we were able to let the leash out a little at a time as they learned responsibility and trust, greater freedoms were earned. I guess there really there is no place on earth completely safe. Parents have to remain committed to checking up, boundaries and setting up a system. Cell phones have really helped you keep up with your kids in a way we didn’t have when our guys were growing up.

Our child rearing years were developing into how I had always dreamed of. We would be fans for all the things the boys would be a part of and just as our lives had been rotated around sports, they would also be a part of those same activities and accomplishments. Stan had been an accomplished athlete in three sports all four years of high school. His greatest accomplishment was playing on the 1976 Texas All Star Basketball Team representing the North vs. South game. He would be very shy about talking about it with anyone. It was not his best game, as nerves got the better part of him that day, but nevertheless, being chosen was a great honor.

I wasn’t a great athlete at all, but I was a great team member of any sport I tried. My greatest accomplishment was also in basketball, I went into substitute for a girl and got the ball and proceeded to go to the wrong basket and shoot! My accomplishment was that I missed! I earned the name, “Wrong Way” after that, so didn’t play again the next year. I really wasn’t as much of a dumb blonde type as I sound. I was really more into writing, journalism and was the girl’s sports editor of the school paper and yearbook. So, sporting events are a way we enjoy our down time even now.

We had expectations of our boys being involved with sports through out little league years, on to city recreation leagues and then on to High School competitions. We go through the first two of those steps and then when we got to the high school levels, something happened to the boys. They didn’t want to play any more, both of them just quit sports altogether. No matter what we said, reasoned, or even bribed them with, had any impact. I don’t really know what happened, but our role as a sideline parent was over. We could still be fans, but we wouldn’t be cheering for our own children.
This was the first I realized that most of the first years of your kids life, you really are in control. You are the one deciding most of what they will be involved with. You can get them to at least try something with your slant on things. What is important to you becomes important to them. The professional teams you root for, they become fans of also. You buy them the items you approve of and want to see them dressed in. You take them to the kinds of restaurants you like and want them to embrace also. Attending church, for instance, you just take them with you and make it a priority to them as they see you committed to it.

This was the beginning realization our hopes and dreams for our family, were not the same as our boys’ hopes and dreams. They were reaching for their own hopes and dreams. They were not wrong; they are individuals who have their own desires and intellect to move into the direction they want.

This was a blow to my expectations in a way that for the first time took me to a place of grief. I know that sounds dramatic, it’s just sports for goodness sake right? You can fill in the blank of your own hopes and dreams right now for your children. You don’t know how much you are counting on them to come true until they are gone. They may be gone because of a tragedy and loss of life. They may be gone because of one wrong decision made by an immature child who couldn’t see the consequence of it for a lifetime. They may be gone because of someone else’s choices and you are just the innocent spouse, mom or grandma left to pick up the pieces of the family. They may be gone because of your own self inflicted decisions you never envisioned would bring a response of anger and rejection. Your decision to spend or invest money, to move to a new home or town, or change careers or try on self employment.

Whatever the reason, the loss of your hopes, dreams and expectations take you to a place of wilderness. You wanted something, you waited for it for years, you wrestled to make it happen and now you are walking in the depths of grief and disappointment.
Some will live through wilderness season and then and move on. Others will stay here for a lifetime. Many will never get over it and their life will move to the depths to anesthetize themselves with alcohol, drugs, food or other addictions trying to fill the void of the lost dream.

Sometimes the inability to accept the reality of a destroyed dream results in estrangement from a family member. Anger rules the heart. That seed of bitterness takes root and begins to grow. It permeates all a persons being. It manifests itself in In many ways. Blame may be an easy place to land and reside for a lifetime. In the Book of Job Chapter 2:9, it tells of Job’s wife had a unique way of encouraging her husband, “Curse God and die”! When things didn’t go her way and she lost all of her children and possessions. Job’s response stayed the same, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 1:21

The family is the first social group we are a part of. It is the place we are nurtured and everything we become starts in the nucleolus of the family. If something is missing from this mom and dad, strong bond, welcoming place of belonging, a person is wounded in a way that will be taken with him or her throughout their life. It doesn’t mean that this “start” will end their ability to contribute to society and become a positive, compassionate person.

I believe the things we lack, become the avenue that God uses in our lives to bring us the realization we have a need for something greater than we are. It shows us our weakness, and need for God. Examining our heart condition we find some black stuff in there. God’s word says in the book of Romans chapter 5 verse 8 says it falls into the category called sin. “…All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. Yep that is me, fallen short, missing the mark, the target. That is what sin is, missing the mark. If you are human, you have fallen short of perfection, which is God’s standard.
We all wish for our children good things. We want them to live long, to be healthy, and to be happy. We want them to be successful and find love in their life; all of those positive things, right?

• What if that isn’t ultimately the way that they will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior? What if their personality, their bent, their character wouldn’t find a need for God? What if they are selfish, have to learn things the hard way? What if health isn’t the way that they will see God’s mercy in their life? What if success drives them to putting money and power ahead of a need to worship God? What if loving a person who would take the attention and priority of God’s first place in their life away?

Ultimately we have to place our wishes, hopes and dreams for our children back into the hands of God. Get neutral of how God wires our children. Let Him move them in and out of the places He will direct their paths. He is working behind the scenes in ways that we cannot imagine. Letting go of our own expectations and even the controlling patterns we set into motion from the day they are placed in our arms must happen. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Get out of the way of the advance works God has created for your kids.

Maybe you are like me and have had a hard time with this. You have been that “hub” in the family making all of the schedules of meals, meetings, vacations, events of life happen. Control is what you do best. For me, telling my husband and sons what to do, how to do it and when to do it has been my bent, and a struggle to stop. After trying to control even my brothers and sisters over the years I have earned the reputation and nickname “The Godfather”. When Stan gets tired of this part of me, he puts me in my place by asking me if he can go to the bathroom now and would I like to come and help him? Gulp! Yes, I am controlling, so giving up my expectations for my family is a big thing. I am continuing to learn to let go.

Even as my oldest son has been married for ten years, and will be blessing our family with a new grandson in a few months, I feel the expectations rising up in me. I’ve dreamed of being a grandparent, so I am praying now that the relationship I have with him will be special and what God has planned for this new role. It’s hard to give that to Him.

The scripture tells us exactly what to invest into our kids. It’s wisdom. Not earthly wisdom, but godly wisdom. Our children will get invitations all their lives for foolishness and for wisdom. Proverbs 8 & 9 tell us the contrast of making wise and foolish choices.
Spend your time praising your children’s character; their honesty, their imagination, compassion, inventiveness, and creativity. Appreciate to them the humor and perseverance they display as a young child and continue to recognize the things that God will be able to use in what ever career choice, relationships, or opportunities they will be given in the future to be effective for the Kingdom of God. It may not have been your wish, dream or expectation, but it may be the place God is getting them ready for His desires and gifts to be realized.

If you have adult children now and are thinking, I blew it. You have been carrying around in your hands the baggage of the disappointment of those dreams you started out with for your family weighing heavy on your heart. Lay them down right now.
Pray right now a relinquishing prayer. Give those hopes, dreams and expectations that you had and didn’t see happen for each child back to the giver of children.
Tell God of the hurt and pain you’ve held onto for years. Tell him of the times you have replayed that time over and over in your head. The steps you can now see that led up to those moments.

Ask God for forgiveness for the resentment you have felt towards them. Tell Him of the guilt you’ve developed for the bitterness and anger you have held onto over it. Ask him to remove the regrets of choices, actions or words you have done and let it go. He says he will remove it as far as the east is from the west. Notice he doesn’t say, as far as the north is from the south? Because that is measurable, east from west never ends…so he will remove it completely, never to be revisited.

Now that you have relinquished your agenda, seek God’s agenda for your life, remember those “works he has prepared in advance” for you to walk in? Now that the baggage has been removed from your hands, you can do them. God bless you.

Kristi