Honest questions from a hard-pressed teenager

‘Why does God keep testing me, mum?’, my teenage daughter asked (digitally of course, though to be fair, she was at work at the time).

‘Because you’re precious to Him,’ I typed. ‘He tests us to refine us – and He has chosen, in His plan, to test you in these years. He has a plan for you. Pray for wisdom, guidance and peace.’ My answer wasn’t particularly theologically deep; had I not been juggling cooking a family meal and looking after younger children at the time, I might have given a more considered one. But I hope she will remember those meagre words when she’s overwhelmed once again – and, truth be told, I also need to learn the truth of what I replied. Because through the unique challenges we’re all living through, there is perhaps one thing above all else that tests me as a parent during the pandemic, causing much self-examination and self-recrimination.

Setting a good example

That is, the example I set my children – an issue magnified in the context of ‘church’. Our own church building has, save for a few weeks, been closed since March 2020, with services and prayer meetings on Zoom. No one can deny this is a poor substitute for the corporate worship commanded by Scripture.

The impact on our children and young people deeply concerns me, an issue that has amplified the critical importance of our parenting example. Because, I have to confess, I now dread Zoom services with children because you cannot digitally replicate the discipline of being physically with others in a building to corporately meet and worship God.

Church online is arduous

The child who has been trained to sit quietly in church since their earliest years is now expected to sit and watch a service on screen, at home, and listen for up to 90 minutes. That’s quite a daunting thing. Our individual digital experience of online services varies, depending on our circumstances, and mine are invariably arduous, Quite frankly, it’s mentally exhausting.

My husband is the tech guy who runs the show, so to speak, from our office while I and the children do Zoom church in the lounge on the laptop. Whereas ‘in church’ the children would not think about distracting me, I can barely get through a couple of minutes without one child irritating another, or coming out with ‘Look, it’s snowing’, ‘Look at this picture,’ ‘Can I get a drink?’ ‘I need a wee’…

Even my older teen, when the pastor was giving his message, recently asked: ‘Mum, what’s for dinner’? It’s not just the kids: the dog thinks Zoom time means playtime – or else she needs to go out.

Persevere

Many readers will feel my pain. But we persevere because we’re duty-bound before the Lord to set a good example, to demonstrate what’s important. Teaching them the discipline of sitting quietly in the living room at 10.30 on Sunday mornings to hear the Scripture read and expounded teaches them it is vitally important – despite the circumstances. Normal life might be on pause, but the worship of our Creator is not.

The example we set as parents affects our children deep into their own adult years. An abiding image of my own mother is of her sitting downstairs in her rocking chair at 6.30 every morning, open Bible on her lap. Could a better example ever be passed down to a child?

Actor and father-of eight Ashley Walters (a professing Christian) commented in a recent Guardian interview: ‘Teenagers aren’t fully grown. They’re not cooked yet … If you show them a different way, you can change people.’ We must show ‘a different way’ – a way that is not where out naturally sinful hearts would lead us – by the way we speak and act. But it is the Lord who does the ‘changing’, not us.

For our part, we need renewed grace daily to fulfil our responsibility – and to prayerfully leave the outworking of this to the Lord.