A friend of ours from way back messed his life up. He got into booze and drugs and gambling and just bad living. He was married to a decent woman who lived a good life. Several kids came along and it was about a 50/50 on the kids. A couple kids just went stupid and ended up in trouble with the law, spent time in prison. Part of the kids got a good education and lived a pretty good clean life.

So was it the parent’s fault? To be honest, who really knows other than God. I sure don’t. If we are being judgemental we’d say it was the dad’s example that the kid’s went bad. But on the other hand, we could say the kids who went to the good was because of the mother’s example. But honestly, who knows?

The dad now is getting up in years, kind of like many of our friends, and he realizes the cruddy example he presented to his kids. He’s never said anything about his kids, but it has to be on his mind. He’s cleaned up and even looks and acts better, but he has to be a troubled parent.

I think this same scenario is true for many a parent or, in many instances, both the mom and dad. It doesn’t have to be drugs but can be the death of a child, maybe an accident, maybe a tragedy involving crimes, and the list goes on and on. For some reason, one’s life is impacted, which has led to a life of almost “self destruction” using whatever is available.

I think one of the burdens that parents have to shoulder later in life is looking back and realizing we raised kids that are troubled. As I’ve gotten older, I look back at how we raised our boys, and there are times when Marge and I probably dropped the ball. I wish we hadn’t, but we did. But at the same time, there are a multitude of times when we did a good job. We did the best we could working with what we knew. Neither of us had been parents before our boys came along! We were new at this as all parents are!

There’s times when, as a parent, we may want to tell our adult kids “I’m sorry” or “We didn’t do as good as we should have.” Tell them that, if possible, we’d like to go back in time and make things right, to live a life one could be proud of. To go back and change how we raised them, maybe spend more time with them or to simply be there for them. Maybe even tell them we wish we’d used a willow limb on them more often. But the whole thing boils down to the fact that we can’t go back, for once time rolls on, it’s done and over.

There are times when we need a friend to tell our troubles and woes to, not a talkative friend. We need one who can listen and hear our heart crying out for peace and forgiveness. This friend has to be a good listener who will sit and listen and not rush in to fix it. This friend also has to be one tight lipped individual or who has a really short and bad memory. Choose wisely. Most preachers would be a good choice and most will have some training in counseling, but you have to realize their training in counseling is limited.

And at the same time also realize that a preacher is going to talk to you about going to church, maybe not their church but some church. And also realize they are going to tell you getting your life right with God would make a great positive impact. The pastor will probably also recommend spending some time reading the Bible, maybe cleaning up your vocabulary, maybe even getting a haircut and a shave and a bath.

Try it, you might like it. Or don’t knock it till you try it!

Just me,

Rennie

Phillips began life as a cowboy, then husband and father, carpenter, a minister, gardener and writer. He may be reached at phillipsrb@hotmail.com.