I grew up in a home where church was mandatory. My mother freaked out when I stopped going to church when I was in college. I didn’t stop believing in God, I just stopped going to church.

The main reason why I stopped going to church was because I didn’t want to do it for my mother I wanted to do it for God.

When I first got pregnant I made the decision to go back to church and become serious about it. My children went with me when they were young. As they got older they stopped going for the same reason I stopped going. They didn’t want it crammed down their throats.

I let them make that decision but still encouraged them to go and testified to them about what God was doing in my life.

My daughter moved out of the house after she graduated from high school and went to work in another state with her boyfriend.

There were some late night phone calls made to me when she was in tears. She missed her friends and she missed Texas, she may have even missed me.

I comforted her and sent her care packages. I did everything I could to ease her pain. I, in fact, became her confidant but in a sly way I had also become her Christ.

We had several heart to heart talks and it made me feel good that I was the one she called when she was distraught.

Then her and her boyfriend moved back to Texas and one day when they were over at my house we got in a heated argument.

I said things I shouldn’t have and she did the same.

We didn’t talk for quite sometime after that.

I still loved her and I was worried about who she would confide in if she wasn’t calling me. Then one day I felt led to send her a text message.

Pretty soon we had reconciled and she told me she was going to church again. My text message had reached her right after her and her boyfriend had prayed together one morning.

Sometimes we think as parents that we have an obligation to play God in our children’s lives. It was amazing to me that when I stopped playing her “savior” she turned back to the only one who could  save her.