Unless you’ve been holed up under a rock (I’m in “Cave Mode” while writing a book—and even I know about this doozey of a scandal!), you will have heard, read, and seen countless stories about the recent college cheating scandal. Obviously the media has latched itself onto the celebrities from Hollywood and named them the faces of the scandal of the year.
I know 99.9% of us have not paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to “donate to a charity” (but really to boost our high schooler’s chances of getting into an Ivy League school.) And we haven’t paid to have test proctors erase and correct our teen’s answers on the ACT or SAT, or fabricate stories and photos to make our non-athletic kids look like they could receive scholarships for collegiate sports teams. But this recent scandal did strike me as an exaggerated version of an epidemic in our society. Many of us are not actually trusting God to be in control of our kids’ lives.
Whether it manifests itself in worry, anxiety, pulling strings, being overly involved, “helicopter parenting”, whatever it looks like . . . we are, ironically, trying to make ourselves feel better about the future.
And yet it usually leads to less peace, not more.
When my daughter started college recently, I found myself doing something completely crazy, letting worry run wild. I figured if I could somehow do this ONE THING, everything would be ok and I would feel better. I was trying to be in control, ignoring the fact that it is God’s job.
I was essentially saying to God—“I’ve got this. You can take the night off. I am totally in control here, Sir.”
What resulted was a hilarious—and somewhat embarrassing!—lesson. (Read on if you want a chuckle at my expense.)
The point is, let us be aware that whether big or small, our actions reveal where our trust really abides. And my hope for all of us is that it would abide in Jesus.
The following is an excerpt from my upcoming new devotional called Find Peace: A 40-Day Devotional Journey for Moms.
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