Youth Ministry: September 2011

The ledge

By Mary Lou Rosien

I have been struggling lately with my young adult and adult children. I was under the mistaken impression that if I did ... “A.B.C.”, then they would turn out “D.” As a trained social worker and parent coach I should have know better, but I didn’t.

This has been an incredibly difficult thing for me. — to watch them mess up, make mistakes, sometimes even serious ones, and to still trust God with their lives, spirituality and their souls. I have turned to prayer in a way that I never thought possible. It has become my lifeline.

To get some perspective on the state of life that I am sharing with you, my husband and I have already parented through some pretty tough things. I have told you before of my foster son’s yearlong deployment in Afghanistan, my daughter’s brain surgery at 13 years old and the fact that we have a child with cognitive delays, a mild form or autism and emotional Dysregulation ... you would think we have been tested, but there always seems to be more.

So, why am I sharing this with you today, dear reader? As youth ministers you are in a unique position to help not only your students, but also their parents in times of stress. The greatest gift you can give them is compassion and prayer. It is so easy for all of us to fall into judgment of another’s situation, but the truth is we can never really know what another is experiencing. What we can share is our common bond of Christian love and prayer.

I love to pray visually. To picture in my mind what I am praying about. While doing this I had an amazing insight into God’s love for my children. I imagined my children running toward a dangerous cliff. I was screaming after them. I could see the danger, why didn’t they? Couldn’t they see the consequences of the actions they were taking? Suddenly, they were gone.

My darling children had fallen off the cliff and my heart felt as if it had been torn out of my chest. I could feel myself wish to die; the pain was terrible.

I felt compelled to look over the side of the cliff. Then, just like in all those action shows I enjoy, I saw it! It looked to me like they had fallen, but they were on a ledge just out of my sight. They hadn’t fallen as deep as I had dreaded; God had them. He used my desperate prayers and he built a ledge.
In real life I was shown this ledge when my adult daughter found a renewed desire to correct some issues in her own life. She has frequented confession so many times in the past month that my husband teases her they keep a tally ledger with her name on the confessional.

The point: pray, pray, pray, and don’t give up even when things seem hopeless. Don’t give up on your students, their parents or yourselves. Just trust God even more and know that he is working wonders even when we can’t see it.

Blessings.

Mary Lou Rosien writes from outside Rochester, N.Y. She is the author of "Managing Stress with the Help of Your Catholic Faith" (OSV, $5.95) and, "Catholic Family Boot Camp" (Bezalel Books, $11.99). Check out her website, or contact her at http://www.catholicfamilybootcamp.com/.