Thoughts on Faith Crisis

Wounded and Doubting: How to Respond to Your Child’s Crisis of Faith

“Watching your child doubt is painful, and it tests parental faith.  Our first inclination might be to panic, but the best option is to pray, wait, trust, and walk alongside our children.”

How timely the email inbox can be.  I’ve been “avoiding” wading through the myriad communications in my email inbox as this process can take strength that is not readily accessible (and the bulk of these missives are “impersonal” and therefore on no real timetable).  Lately what strength I can muster has in large part been dedicated to helping my special son, Josiah, wrestle with his own crisis of faith…and reading the article above has now inspired this writing…

It started some time back with a seemingly random conversation with Josiah’s Respite Care Worker that Josiah overheard.  This Worker is a Muslim that has claimed to have been raised by both Muslims and Christians…he said one of his grandmothers was a “Christian Evangelist”.  Anyway the Worker and I were discussing the changing of faith of his father and stepmother, in that he claimed that both were “raised as Christians” but later converted to Islam…I had questioned whether or not either of these relatives had truly been “Christian” at all if they could alter their viewpoint of Jesus so much that He would go (in their minds) from Lord & Savior to just a “good man” and a “prophet”…

Anyway, overhearing this conversation seemed to start a spiral in Josiah’s heart/mind that if his Worker’s relations could abandon Jesus he too could be at risk of loosing his Faith…

My husband and I have each spent hours in counseling and prayer with our son as we attempt (with the Lord’s help) to assist him in navigating these treacherous waters.  It’s truly wondrous to see the depths of despair that assail our son as he wrestles with his sorrow and shame at even the possibility of ever turning away from Our Lord.  His pure heart has been laid bare in conversation and prayer and his unveiled desire for a deeper rekindling of his zeal for the Lord is remarkable in someone so young! (or anyone, for that matter!)

So we’ve been encouraging him in Scripture memorization and meditation, prayer, worship, and in carrying out the edicts of scripture…like taking “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (from BibleGateway.com)

2 Corinthians 10:5 King James Version (KJV)

Now we continue to encourage Josiah to work on this process of “taking into captivity” his thoughts that seem to want to stray into the arena of his fears.  As a person on the Autism Spectrum with tendencies toward “perseveration” (getting stuck on a topic) and with a known history of Anxiety and Depression and even OCD this situation has seemed to have created a bit of a Perfect Storm which our son must learn to weather and still Trust God, not allowing his anxieties to overwhelm and overshadow his knowledge of Truth, nor his relationship with the Lord…

Although it is difficult to see how he struggles and the pain this brings him, it is also glorious to see the Kingdom Work being done in his heart.  It is a privilege as a Christian parent to be able to share in the spiritual journey with our children and to find how our own historical struggles and wounds have uniquely prepared us to minister to them during these times of upheaval in our loved one’s lives.  We truly believe that this “crisis of faith” is actually part of his spiritual “manhood training” whereby he learns how to go beyond the milk of the Word and how to feed himself spiritual meat.

We’re also trying to help him internalize how we live by faith and Not emotions…in fact, I don’t know of one place in scripture where the Lord instructs us to consult our feelings and based on them decide what truth/reality is!  We’re assisting our son to lay that firm foundation on the Rock that is Christ Jesus, that is based on Scriptural Truth, and which can provide a safe harbor in Any Storm, because it is never dependent upon our fleeting emotions aligning with it to validate it as immutable Truth.

So unlike the article above’s trajectory, we are Not dealing with someone who doubts their faith, but rather someone who is incredibly broken by even the possibility that at any time he could become so deceived that he would be tempted to turn his back on the Lover of his Soul.  Hearing his heart cry out in prayer, expressing his hunger and thirst for God, and the articulate way (completely different that his human interactions) he communicates with the Lord has been such a sorrowful joy for my own soul too.  In the Kingdom of God my son has No Disability!  Perhaps, in some aspect of God’s plan, He sent us a “broken” (in this world’s eyes) child that we could see how in the arms of a loving God there is no (spiritual) brokenness in him!  In fact, hearing him pour out his aching heart to our Heavenly Father really serves to highlight how “disabled” is my own spiritual fervor in comparison!

What if in God’s Kingdom we seemingly “normal” people are the ones who are truly disabled and our “challenging children” are sent to help us not only to grow in grace and strength in the Lord, but to set an example of how we should live with “childlike” faith?

Peace & Joy, in Our Lord Jesus Christ,

Valerie

And in my current CD mix, as I’m “polishing” this up comes John Elefante’s “Pass the Flame” song, which always speaks to me, especially about Josiah.  The lyrics below from

http://www.metrolyrics.com/pass-the-flame-lyrics-john-elefante.html

and hopefully another link below to the music…Enjoy!

JOHN ELEFANTE LYRICS

OVERVIEW / LYRICS (SEE ALL) / PHOTOS / VIDEOS / NEWS

Pass The Flame Lyrics

from Defying Gravity

Three a.m. – a baby boy; a new life began
I held him in my arms and
knew one day he’d be a man
And soon I’d have to tell
him that this world is not our home
We must give our lives to Jesus;
we are not our own

But for now just let me hold you,
a little while
Let me adore you while you sleep
Thank You, Lord, for such an angel
Make him Yours to keep
And then I whispered in his ear
There is something you must hear

Chorus:
Any way the wind blows
Don’t you think that God knows
We must pass the flame
We must pass the flame
We are the light in a darkened world
We are the fire on the arrow
We must pass the flame
We must pass the flame

She was a portrait of innocence
I took her by the hand
For better or for worse we vowed
that with Jesus we’d stand
We would instill upon our children
that this world is not our home
We would tell them that our
treasure is the promise that we own

But for now just
let me hold you a little while
Let me adore you while you sleep
Thank You, Lord, for such an angel
Make them Yours to keep
So let me whisper in your ear
There is something you must hear

Chorus

And Lord, help us teach Your children well
And turn embers in to fire
Make Your love their soul desire

The doctors came into the room;
the news was not too good I said,
“Daddy, if I could take your place,
you know that I would.”
He said, “Son, please don’t worry
go and be there for your wife
You know we’ll be together in
an everlasting life.”

Then I said, “Dad, I want to hold
you a little while
Let me adore you while you sleep.”
Thank You, Lord, for such an angel
Take him home to keep
And then he whispered in my ear
There is something you must hear

Chorus

Chorus

Songwriters
DINO ELEFANTE, JOHN ELEFANTE, GEORGE MARINELLI JR, GEORGE MARINELLI

Published by
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC

Read more: John Elefante – Pass The Flame Lyrics | MetroLyrics