BoomerGirl Diary

In the midst of a recent de-cluttering session, I found this handwritten poem, sent by a friend over twenty years ago.

“As children bring their broken toys with tears for us to mend,

I brought my broken dreams to God because He is my friend.

But then instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,

“How can you be so slow?”

“My child,” He said, “What could I do?

You never did let go.”

My initial response was:

“What a lovely wee poem.”

My second was to question its implications. At the time, I was a 40-year-old child coming to terms with my mother’s death, and facing other challenges. I wanted to explore the implications of having an adult relationship with God, one where I could balance trusting God with trusting myself and take responsibility for my decisions. I asked myself if an adult inter-dependent spiritual relationship with God would be more authentic than a child-parent one with its assumption that everything would be fixed for me. If I dumped my problems on friends with expectations that they’d fix them for me, I’d have been given short shrift. This “lovely wee poem,” like the religious teachers at the time, seemed to be encouraging a childish relationship with God – one where God was a fixer-upper. I couldn’t relate to it at that stage in my life.

We know it’s important for birds to teach their young how to feed, fly and leave the nest. Many toddlers go through a clinging stage and squawk when parents try to leave them. I’ve observed adults using techniques to help toddlers let go. They’re as much for the adult’s sanity as for the child’s healthy development. Parents also know offspring need to leave home eventually and become independent. It’s considered unhealthy for adult children to cling to their parents, or for parents to hold them back. Healthy adult relationships are inter-dependent not co-dependent.

So how does this apply to my relationship with God? Might there be such a thing as an empty-nest-spiritual-syndrome? Does God want us go ahead and take responsibility for our own actions and stand on our own two feet?

Jesus gave some clues. He taught his disciples for three years, promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit and assured them they would be able to do all of the things He had taught them. After his death, they were down-hearted and gave a good impression of being useless.

With the eventual appearance of the Holy Spirit, they were transformed and did impossible things like healing the blind and lame, and preaching to extremely large crowds. They acted like real grown-ups and made some hard decisions about their own lives, and offered challenges to those who wanted to join them. They prayed as if everything depended on God, but worked and lived as if everything depended on them. There wasn’t anything childish about their lives or their relationship with God.

Now, you are probably more spiritually balanced than I am and know exactly when to let go and let God, and when to go ahead and trust the Spirit of God within you as you make decisions and take responsibility for them. Your faith may be such that you are able to pray AND work at solutions to whatever questions and challenges you have. I can get stuck somewhere in the middle, but have found that if I bring the same honesty to my relationship with God as I bring to my close friendships, I am able to move forward and discover ways to change and grow on my journey towards spiritual adulthood.

In the next few columns I hope to explore this topic further.

Are you are struggling with a childish relationship with God that no longer makes sense to you?

Have you discovered ways to have a more adult meaningful relationship with God?

What are some of the challenges women face as they search for meaningful adult spirituality?