This post is written by my wife, Angel Beeson, a counselor at Whole Hope Christian Counseling and my co-author. It is an excerpt from our book Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity. Our children are now 21 and 19 and just finished their freshman and junior years in college– John
I sat across from Olivia. Her hands and her voice shook. “All my life I wanted to be a mom. I was so excited to get married, mostly because then I could finally be a mom. Six months after our wedding day we got pregnant. We were so excited! We began picking out names and preparing the nursery. At four months, I miscarried. I was so angry with God. How could he let this happen? Isn’t this what he made me for?”
She began to cry. I let the quietness sit in the room. Olivia continued, “A year passed and we got pregnant again. We were excited but afraid. I kept waiting to lose the baby and at four months, I miscarried again. I yelled at God, ‘If you love me, why are you allowing this to happen?’ I was so bitter.”
Her tears continued to flow. “I miscarried a third time, and then I gave up on God’s goodness. I guess I made a vow to God that I wouldn’t trust him again. My husband and I started looking into adoption, and in the middle of the process we got pregnant again. I resolved I wouldn’t let him die. I was meticulous with exercise, health, and rest. I made sure nothing would get in the way of my baby’s life. God failed me three times in pregnancy. I was going to take control of this pregnancy. Months passed and my precious baby was born. I finally had what I wanted all those years: I was a mom.”
“What does it mean to you that you are a mom?” I asked.
“It is my job to protect. It is my responsibility to keep my son safe.
He is my everything. If he’s happy, then I am happy. My husband complains that I don’t pay attention to him, and everyone jokes that our son is the prince. But he is my purpose.”
Not all will experience the challenge and the gift of being a parent, but many long to hold a child and be called “Mommy” or “Daddy.” Others ache at a child’s death. And others are disappointed by infertility. Whatever your circumstance, it can be easy to place one’s identity in the ideal of being a parent.
For those who are parents, you never forget the first moment you hold your child. Our firstborn, Camille, came into the world with big, bright blue eyes. She couldn’t hold her shining eyes open wide enough. There was so much to take in and absorb. Today Camille lives in fifth gear, with insatiable curiosity and relentless energy. Our second born, Soren, had to be coaxed to open his eyes. He exited the womb like a curled panda bear. Mellow and easygoing, Soren gets along with everyone and is rarely ruffled.
One year ago, Camille graduated from high school. Our son is less than a year away from his graduation. We look at the years we’ve been blessed to actively shepherd their hearts as some of the most life- giving years of our lives. We couldn’t be more thankful for our kids. They are two of the greatest gifts we have ever been given. Is there any role more challenging or rewarding than parenting?
As parents we pour out our hearts, our time, and our energy for our kids. We grieve when they are sad, and we glow when they are filled with joy. We are heartbroken when they are picked on at school, and we are so proud when they master a challenging subject. In short, our hearts are tethered to our children’s hearts in ways that are hard to explain if you aren’t a parent. That heart tie can lure us to think that being a mom or dad is part of our identity, and even a healthy part. After all, what could be dangerous about identifying yourself as a mom or a dad?
But our true identity was never intended to be as mom or dad. Even when they are minors, our children do not belong to us; they belong to God. Tethering our children to ourselves creates codependency. We cannot siphon our identity from our children’s well- being. Such codependency puts our souls in danger. If our success and worth are found in how well our children behave or in what they achieve, we are in spiritual danger. When we can only experience joy if our children are happy, it exposes the fact that our children have become idols for us. And since, with any idol, our purpose is found in appeasing it, we parent with the goal of having our children be happy with us and the world around them. We seek to manage our children—but, ironically, we are controlled by them. In this codependent relationship, we believe our children’s behavior is a direct reflection of us. With our reputation at stake, we try to manipulate our children to behave in a manner that is not in their best interest but ours. The truth is, our godliness as parents does not guarantee our children’s godliness (and, praise God, our sin doesn’t guarantee our children’s sin). It is a dangerous thing to anchor our identity to the choices our children will make in life. Many parents have been wrecked emotionally and spiritually by their children’s failures. And many have had their egos balloon with their children’s successes.
When your child throws a tantrum, your worth is not diminished.
When your child earns straight As, your worth is not increased.
As strong as our bonds to our children are, we are not intended to be one with them. If our children marry, they ought to be united to their spouses. If our children die, our role as a parent concludes. The only one- flesh union on this earth is not between parent and child; it is between husband and wife. And, as we have already explored in chapter 6, even that isn’t part of our identity. Our children’s choices, their marriages, and the possibility of their deaths remind us that being Mom or Dad is a role we’re to steward as unto the Lord— a very important role, yes, but it is not an identity.
That can feel like bad news. What else are we supposed to do? For some, there are few things more life giving than our relationships with our children and the gift of caring for them as their parents. For others, parenting is one of the few things we think we’ve gotten mostly right. Why would God take that identity away from us?
Hang with us here. There is good news. It isn’t that God is taking the identity of parent away from us; rather, he’s giving us new eyes to see that parenting is a role to steward because he is the Great Parent. Our identity is grounded in our relationship with our heavenly Father, not in our relationship with our children. This means our identity is found in our status as a child of God, not as a mom or dad.
The implications of God’s adopting us are transformative— and permanent. The role of parent can change at any time, but our adoption as sons1 of God cannot be removed by any person or circumstance. Exchanging your identity as a parent for your true identity as a son of God gives you permission to yield control and fear to God and receive, in return, his peace and promises of faithfulness toward you and your children. It gives you permission to surrender your children, knowing your limitations in this role as parent, to their perfect, never- changing, constant advocate, their loving Abba Father, who hears their every breath and has established each of their steps. When we entrust our kids to the Lord, we parent in grace and truth, not in bondage and exhaustion.
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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash