When Your Teen is Struggling With Their Faith
“If our kids never struggle with their faith, they will have borrowed convictions.” –Josh McDowell
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I was raised in a Christian home. My mom was a children’s pastor. I felt like I was always at church. But when I got to high school, I started having doubts about my faith. I was no longer interested in taking everything my parents said at face value. I had to figure it out for myself. More importantly, I needed the Holy Spirit to help me…to change my heart. I could no longer rely on my parent’s faith. It had to be my own.
I’ve heard it said; “there are no grandkids in God’s family.”
Later, in college, I came to have a more personal relationship with Jesus. It became something of my own, something I had wrestled with and worked through. I’ve continued to grow in my faith since that time. I can say, now, that there’s nothing I value more than my relationship with Christ. He’s the center of my life.
I was a Christian from an early age. I was five years old when I prayed the first time, asking Jesus to forgive my sins- and I committed my life to him. But if I’m being perfectly honest, there was something of a parent pleasing aspect to that first prayer. Nevertheless, it was what I was capable of at the time- and I believe God honored that prayer, making me His own, from that moment on.
Now that I’m a parent of a teen, myself, I can sympathize with my own parents, and how scary that must have been for them, seeing their daughter struggle with her faith during those teen years. As a Christian parent, there’s nothing more important than the aim of our children coming to know Christ in a personal way.
I’m here to tell you that it’s not only normal, for kids raised in Christian homes to struggle with their faith, but it’s important.
I'm sharing at Faith Along the Way as part of the Strong Family Project. To read the rest, click here.
