One time I noticed a pattern. When I ran down the list of some of the friends I respect most, I saw a surprising thread. Many of them, though certainly not all, had a parent who was addicted to alcohol. Another handful had lost a parent much too early. How could it be that people who had suffered went on to be the very ones I look to for strength?
Their faces played in my mind like a video. Surely the way life had chiseled their character with sharp knives had been painful. Having a father who is ham strung with addiction is not a rosy path. Losing a parent to death when you are still too little to reach the light switch leaves a darkness not easily chased away. Yet here they were, friends whose compassion came from experience not just theory. I singled them out in my mind, whether or not I saw them often, as ones whose opinion carried sway with me.
The allegiance has staying power too. I loved them twenty years ago, and I love them still.
It turns my own parenting aspirations into question. I have long held tightly to the belief that my job as mother is to protect my children from disappointment and failure. Yet maybe those are the very tools God uses to craft their souls.
The same holds true for marriage. At weddings a couple is showered with cards and songs, hugs and well wishes with a theme of "May you have a happy life!"
Perhaps I will break with tradition and send a different message.
"May your marriage be hard enough to render you soft."
