When It Hits Close to Home

There’s no such thing as hitting below the belt in spiritual warfare. Satan desires to rob of us of our joy by attacking our faith, our marriages, our friendships, and our children.

Especially our children.

What better way to rip out someone’s soul than through their child?

Over twenty years ago I buried a child. She’d barely had a chance to live, a heart defect claiming her life after only six weeks.

I was devastated.

I wasn’t sure how to live again, how to be a mom to the three kids waiting at home when I left the hospital that final time. Losing my child caused me to nearly lose myself.

William Wordsworth said,  A mother’s love is an unrivaled force of nature.

The ferociousness with which we protect our kids is animalistic. We’d lay down our own lives to save our children.

So it makes complete sense that the devil would hit us where it hurts the most.

In the media, in my own church, and in the life of a good friend in the ministry. I’ve watched mother after mother sit by helplessly as Satan has pulled away their children, leaving them shocked, bewildered, and devastated.

Some can’t find the strength to get out of bed. Others are barely going through the motions of life.

Still others fight back.

But they forget. The weapons of our warfare aren’t carnal, but mighty due to the pulling down of strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4) We are in a spiritual battle. We need to start permeating the realm of darkness with prayers. We need to start recognizing the strongholds in our own lives and breaking them. Anger, lust, greed…we need to shut the doors to sin in our own lives and start praying for the Lord to help our kids shut their own doors.

It isn’t easy.

For one, we have to sit back and let God take control. We can’t beat our kids into submission, nor can we shame them. But we also can’t make excuses for them, nor can we let them manipulate us.

What we can do is stand firm on the promises of God. These children are the arrows in our quiver. (Psalm 127:4-5) Whether we released them twenty years or two days ago, we have to trust that they WILL hit the mark intended by God.

My own arrow did a few loop-de-loops itself.

In any area I counsel in, my own attack usually follows. Faith, finances, stress…helping someone overcome a battle is often “rewarded” by a herculean battle of my own.

Tonight proved to be no exception.

One of my kids got into some trouble and I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach when I got the call.

But what was I going to do?

Treat her differently than someone on the street just because she was my own kid? I look at everyone out there like they are my own family. I love them and I care, but I also shoot straight.

I gave her a call.

“Thank you for not yelling at me,” she told me as we neared the end of our conversation.

Her surprise caught me off-guard.

But I understood. I wasn’t homeless-ministry mom when she was growing up. I was yell-every-time-you-left-your-dirty-clothes-on-the-floor mom.

Still there was nothing to yell about. She’s a young adult, and she’s got an entire lifetime ahead of her to make her own choices and suffer the consequences when she makes the wrong decisions. I can help her by praying for her, by listening to her, and by sharing my own experiences.

After all, my kids have yet to go down a single road where their mom hadn’t already left footprints.

I couldn’t get angry; I couldn’t crawl in the bed and pull the covers over my head.

I had to get to the hospital and pray with a neighbor who’d just had a heart attack and then meet with a doctor about a homeless friend who’d just been admitted to the hospital psych ward.

The next time I went to the jail I would remember that this was someone's child, just like my own daughter, who'd made a bad decision.

And I would fight with everything I had.

Because it's all a spiritual battle. 

And the battle doesn’t stop just because it gets personal.

Fight.

 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Ephesians 6:11-13