MOMMY (Caregivers/Mentors) MONDAYS (#10)

GOT SOME THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTIONS

I've been thrown some really thought-provoking questions lately about what we would do as parents or mentors if...

Why I've been getting lots of these questions lately, I don't know. They weren't necessarily directed at me or my family members or children, but they were posed because they were about the speaker's children or family members, or people they knew, or just posed because they were really curious about what their response would be if some of these things ever happened to them. I thought about them all this morning and wanted to know, "Yeah, what IF these things happened to you (my readers)?" "What would you do if...?" "What would your response be if...?" I want you to think about it. You don't have to send me a comment about your answer or response. This was mainly just to get you thinking, searching your heart, listening to who you are, trying to figure out why you think the way you do. If you comment, tell me how these questions made you feel and think, not your sure response to them.

• What would you do and/or say if your son or daughter came home and told you that they were gay?
• What would you say to your child if you and they had dreams of them going to college and they suddenly changed their minds and didn't want to go at all?
• What if they told you they didn't believe in Jesus, but somebody or something else?
• What if they told you that they were atheist?
• What would you say if your child or mentoree wanted to get tattoos all over their bodies and/or piercings (and you didn't like them personally)? What about just one tattoo?
• What would you say to your child who insists on looking like the world (or Hollywood), no matter what you buy them and what you say?
• What if your child admitted to being bulimic or you found out that they were anorexic? Would you blame yourself?
• What if your daughter told you that she had an abortion without you knowing it?
• What if your teenage or adult son told you that he had fathered a child you didn't know about?
• What if your child told you they had been having sex for a while and you didn't know it?
• How would you handle your child wanting to leave home too soon, before the age of 18?
• What would you do if you caught your underaged child smoking?
• What if you found out that your child had an addiction to pornography?
• What if you found out that your child was the perpetrator of a hanous crime and you never knew until the news broke months or even years later?

Now I just realized as I was typing that almost all, but not all of these questions has been posed to me at one time or another. The rest I just sat here and thought about adding. I've always thought I would like to respond to these questions with perfect, Christian answers, and that is possible, but you couldn't do it alone. I have the perfect answer and the whole scenario and drama played out in my head on how it would go should I ever get into one of these situations personally. It seems to me realistically, we'd better be doing some preparation work in prayer now. We live in a fallen world, and again realistically, any of these things can happen to us, so the question still remains, "What would you say or do if...?"

Have a contemplative and prayerful Monday!