Looking to Hope

Rachel and Rebecca took a snapshot of themselves at an outdoor concert they were attending which I now keep prominently before me at my workstation. Whenever I have doubts about doing what I do for forty hours each week (and this happens more often than I like to admit) I can dispel them by focusing on the smiling faces of my two beautiful daughters. Whenever the future begins to look little more than hopeless, true hope can be resurrected simply by remembering the character of these two remarkable young women each time I look at their picture.

Rachel and Rebecca weren’t on the front page of today’s paper with the group of teens accused of killing and burying another teen in the desert. They aren’t among the thousands of young women that my office deals with for whom the first step in getting child support is trying to figure out who the father is. Indeed, they are in relationships with two equally outstanding young men who, to a father’s great delight, display genuine respect and affection for my daughters. They don’t abuse drugs (or anything else that I’m aware of), they are good drivers, and are in general responsible, contributing citizens of our society.

Now that I’m a parent I better understand something that my cousin, Carol, said about her children long before Mary and I had our own. She said, “I can’t take credit for the fact that Kevin and Christie turned out to be such good kids anymore than I could have accepted all the blame if had they turned out some other way. Kenneth and I have done the best we could and have provided to the best of our ability, but from there on the kids have been on their own.” Mary and I protested that their good parenting could not be discounted as being instrumental in the way their children turned out, but now I realize the wisdom of what she was saying.

Rachel and Rebecca are not wonderful persons because Mary and I “made” them be that way. Indeed we quickly learned that we weren’t going to be able to “make” either of them do much of anything they didn’t want to. The most that we were able to do was to create an environment that was conducive for each newly forming personality to realize her own wonderfulness, and then to encourage that realization to the best of our ability.

And now for the really good news! Rachel and Rebecca aren’t the only two “good kids” I know. Quietly out of the spotlight a multitude of their generation is examining the lemons being handed them to figure out how to make lemonade from them. Although it is no more desirable to have your parents present when gathering with friends than it was when I was their age, I have occasionally had the privilege of getting to be – literally – in the next room. I have marveled at how this group has chosen of its own accord to abstain from the kinds of things that are the stuff of which parents’ nightmares are made and still manage to have a good time with one another.

Yes, there are still “bad” kids that unfortunately get a lot of media attention because society really can’t afford to ignore the destructive activities in which they are engaged. But it is not fair, nor is it spiritually healthy, to ignore the “good” kids because we are so focused upon what is truly a minority of the population. As I strive to continue to grow in Christ I am slowly but surely learning that I control whether my experience is one of despair or hope by where I focus my attention and upon what I allow my mind to dwell. That’s why I keep right in front of me my picture of Rachel and Rebecca. Amen.