Finding Our Way Forward Study Guide
My daughter turned 16 last month. Four days later, she got her driver’s license. The following day she got her first job. I’m proud of the adult she is so rapidly becoming and I’m glad she is revelling in her independence. I also feel a little woozy from the speed of it all. Like I’m finally experiencing what everyone says about raising kids but I never before felt: “It goes so fast.”
That’s why Melanie Springer-Mock’s request to write the study guide for her upcoming book couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. Finding Our Way Forward: When the Children We Love Become Adults is a thoughtful reflection on today’s experience of young adulthood and a powerful invitation for parents to embrace humility and expand our vision for the young adults we love.
Finding Our Way Forward comforted me, but also pushed me to increase my empathy, challenge my biases, and courageously release the illusion of control to which I so often cling. I’ve always known I don’t actually have control over my kids’ lives - no matter how much my cliff-edge, blue-fingered grip might say otherwise.
Of course, we want control. It’s a very, very scary world out there - a truth that Melanie does not shy away from in her book: diving headlong into the realities of school violence, climate change, racism, societal divisions and more. We love our children and we want them to be safe, happy, healthy and strong. So of course we want control.
But through poignant and compelling stories of her own children’s adolescence and young adulthood, as well as the experiences of many students she’s walked beside, Melanie invites us to accept that our tight-fisted, fear-based hold on our children does not ultimately serve them. Or us.
She asks us to consider our deeply-held biases about what makes for a “good life” for our children and encourages us to consider how the image of God in our children may look different from our own. She invites us to embrace humility as we vision our children’s future, recognizing that our view on the world is limited, and that there can be other ways of living that are just as divinely-inspired as our own.
In all this, Melanie is actually inviting us into our own courageous transformation as our children grow up and move out. This is not a small transition, particularly for parents like me, whose primary vocation has been child-rearing.
Ultimately, Melanie asks: will we trust God enough to fully release our children to divine providence? And: will we trust God enough to allow this terrifying but beautiful release to transform us?
I’m on board. I’m saying yes. I’m sure it’s a faltering yes with many stops and starts, and attempts and failures, followed by ever more attempts. But if being a parent for the last 16 years has taught me anything, it’s how to deal with repeated failure: oops, sorry, and try again.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Particularly if you were raised in the Christian tradition and have been the primary caregiver for your young adult children. This book will encourage you, challenge you, convict you, and inspire you.
Finding Our Way Forward is available for purchase here.
And you can download my study guide here. Perhaps you want to read it with a group of friends? I hear that Study Guide is pretty good stuff…
