March 13, 2024 – Teen Rebels and Grown Prodigals: Pain and Prayer

Mercy Every Minute

Deborah Wuehler, TOS Senior Editor

What Do I Do with This Pain?

The pain of a rebellious teen can be a daily reality. Upon waking, or within hours, you find yourself in the middle of a battle with your child. You love them so much that you don’t want them to continue in their rebellion, and your heart hurts for them. You may also be attacked as they disrespect you and your authority, which is another kind of pain to endure. If your rebellious teen then leaves your home and continues in sin, we now call them a prodigal.

The pain of a prodigal is a deep pain that just stays in the back of your throat waiting to be released at any moment. But sometimes homeschool moms just can’t let those feelings out when they have to be present and need to put on a happy face for the rest of the family. That deep, heartbreaking pain can engulf the most fervent of parents. Why? Because we love that deeply.

What do we do with all this pain?

• Place the pain at the foot of the cross. Go to your closet and allow those tears to run as you cry out to the Lord for your child’s salvation. Wipe your tears and thank the Lord for every opportunity He gives to show your children what His mercy and grace look like through you.
• Pray, “Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to feel even a minute fraction of the pain you felt for me in my own rebellion, and now you feel for my child. I am thankful that you understand what rebellion and rejection feel like and are feeling it with me. Thank you for letting me share in the compassion of your heart for my child. Draw them to You as we continue to stand strong in Your Word and Your love.”
• Wait patiently and expectantly for the Holy Spirit to convict your child’s heart. Allow the patience of waiting for the rebel’s return to have its perfect work in you. Allow God’s strength to flow through your weakest pain-filled places. His glory is revealed there.
• Don’t put confidence in the rebellion you see with your eyes. Put your confidence in what you cannot see. The invisible, eternal God is working. He would that none should perish but all should come to repentance. He doesn’t give up.

If your rebellious child or your prodigal bows the knee to Christ, the acute pain turns to such joy and relief as you watch them surrender to Christ. You may find that all those years of planting seeds in the face of rejection has come to fruition. If that is your story, I rejoice with you. If you are still waiting and weeping, I wait and weep with you.

Let me know how I can pray for you and your rebel,

~Deborah

Rebellion was our story for over ten years with our daughter, Hannah. Listen in to the newest podcast where I interview Hannah on this topic of teen rebels at www.HomeschoolShow.com.

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Beth Mora

Open Arms

There’s a pain that can’t be measured on a scale from 1-10. Your child is making bad choices, really bad choices. Everything in your parental being wants to feel the embrace of your prodigal running home. You are not alone. God has many prodigal children, and through His word, we see what He does and what we need to do in the moments our arms wait for our child’s return.

Keep Your Arms Open

In Genesis chapter 17, the Israelites face their first battle after leaving Egypt. Moses sits on a rock overlooking the battle and prays with hands lifted high. Israel prevails as long as his hands are reaching out to the Lord of the Battle. Yet the weight and heaviness of holding his arms open becomes unbearable. Aaron and Hur plant feet in the ground and add their strength to Moses’ prayer and keep his arms lifted and open. In the battle for our sons and daughters, we can’t do this alone. Reach out to fellow believers who can steady arms to stay open. Hope for Hurting Parents is one such community.

Embrace Others

Don’t let your aching arms for the missing child stop you from loving the others. Love Jesus, love your husband, love your family, love your church family, and love your neighbor. The brother of the prodigal son missed out on the joy of his father’s presence and who knows how many other relationships suffered. Grief and joy can exist in the same space. Walk the walk of faith, hope, and love.

Rest in Jesus’ Open Arms

The safest place to fall apart is in Jesus’ arms. Praise God to the One who never sleeps nor slumbers! Who is always there to comfort and dry our tears. In God’s warm embrace, He heals the parts of us that we didn’t even know were broken.

The pain of watching your child suffer can only be remedied by keeping our arms open in prayer to a faithful God who loves your child more than you can possibly understand. It means keeping our arms open and ourselves present to whom God has called us to love.

About the author

Beth Mora is creator/teacher-on-camera for Here to Help Learning’s Homeschool Writing Program (grades 1–6) and homeschool conference and women’s events speaker. She loves to blog at Home to Home. She serves up HTHL’s Writing Tip of the Week for those teaching their kiddos to write. Everything she does, whether laughable or heart-gripping, is done to honor One. God’s grace is the salve that has healed her own life and is what she offers liberally to others.

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Tracy Klicka

The Son I Thought I Was Losing

My oldest son was 17 when his dad died. Hard time for a young man to lose their dad. Even harder for him was the fact that he took on a big responsibility of caring for his rapidly ailing father the last couple years of his life. Surrounded by sisters and a young brother, my son was the only one physically strong enough to do a lot of the heavy lifting—getting his dad in and out of vehicles, the bed, his chair, and his motorized scooter.

Not only that, but my son also carried an equally heavy emotional burden in caring for his dad. MS is a horrible disease, and no one caring for a loved one with it remains unaffected by it.

My son’s care for his dad meant a loss of freedom—to work, play sports, or be regularly involved with our wonderful church youth group. He spent most of his time that last year of his dad’s life trying to serve him and keep up with his own schoolwork.

Dealing with the frustration of not being able to live a normal teenage life resulted in a lot of anger building up in that dear boy, and my son’s choice to bury his emotions made for broken communication and a strained relationship with me, his mom. That anger did get expressed, though—through his hurtful words, his destructive behavior, and his driving.

One speeding ticket the last year of Chris’s life was followed by a reckless driving incident shortly before his dad’s death. I didn’t find out about it, however, until some weeks after his dad died.

Observing the slippery slope he was on and feeling overwhelmed, I admit to parenting out of fear. Yet, I also felt led to pray and fast for this dear son, and ultimately trust God for his uncertain future. I committed to speaking truth in love to my son, and I daily asked God for His wisdom and the courage to trust Him, regardless of the choices my son made.

Over the next 10 years, God heard this mom’s prayers and slowly worked in my son’s heart and life. Today, he is a strong, committed man of God who loves sharing life with his wife and children and living for Jesus. And I love being his mom and sharing a close relationship I could only imagine when he was a teen.

About the author

Tracy Klicka, widow of former HSLDA attorney Christopher Klicka, is a homeschooling mom of seven adult children. Seasoned homeschooler and gifted writer/speaker for over 22 years, Tracy has addressed thousands at homeschooling conventions and women’s events, contributed to Christianity Today, regularly writes for national homeschool publications, and contributed to her late husband’s homeschooling books. She serves as the Director of Development for HSLDA, through which their Compassion Program helps families homeschooling through hard times.

Pillar of Knowledge

Roger Smith

When the Pain is Great Enough

Change is easy—when the pain is great enough.

I’m not talking about the rebel in our ranks. I’m talking about us.

There is REAL PAIN when our child disagrees with us and lives like it. We feel failure. Embarrassment, too!

Others see your “wild child,” while you see your own pain.

Change is needed, but there is only one person you can change. He’s in the mirror.

A brave parent can drop the façade of righteousness, and simply work to communicate love, acceptance, and understanding to the child who is trying so hard to find his own path in life.

Sadly, rebellion is sometimes in response to treatment received from parents, but probably not in most cases. If you have been harsh and rigid, a sincere apology may be a first step toward building a bridge.

In any case, “love covers a multitude of sins.” Not the kind of love that says, “I’m doing this for your own good!” But the kind that “forgets the 99 good sheep, and goes searching for the ONE.”

It’s tender. It’s listening. It has open arms.

That kind of love sooths the pain in both “the found” and “the finder.”

About the author

Dr. Roger Smith is a family doctor in rural Louisiana, where he and his wife, Jan, raised four adventurous children who are all grown, making their own mark in the world. He speaks and writes on parenting issues and produces brief videos that can be found on Facebook @ParentingMattersNow.

Good parenting means using head, heart, and faith. Parenting Your Teenager with Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott equips moms and dads to recognize common patterns, plan effective strategies, and build character. This series features gut-level interviews where parents and teens talk openly about rebellion, conflict, pain, and identity. Plus, there’s a candid chat with singer Steven Curtis Chapman about faith and family.