Heroes of the Month: Jesus and Parents

I received an email from a mom today, who is concerned about her son in church. This is the third time I have to deal with parents. On the one hand, it feels encouraging that the parents have indirectly reaffirmed my commitment to look out for the boys, because they trust me enough that I'm doing a good job as a shepherd of chaotic sheeps. On the other hand, the issues that they raised are quite beyond me to solve or manage because the problems - to some extent - are deep rooted in their upbringing during their early childhood. I don't have an experience of a father of course. But based on my own observation and memories of how my parents have raised me up, I think the first 10 years are really important years in establishing a boy's identity. I think my parents have done a pretty good job in filling up my tabula rasa, despite their idiosyncracies and non-christian way of thinking. I know they love me, just that they do not know how to show it. Mom does it through fruit juice, dad does it through financial allowance. On the other hand, I desire communication, but I cannot remember the last time I have a decent talk with my parents. Maybe it was in 2005 when I had to really sit down, penned my words in a letter, to tell my dad why I need to go to Sri Lanka, without making him think that I am mad. I don't blame them for the lack of communication, because it is really a matter of different love languages, and maybe in an Asian family, communication is just a tough thing to do. The bottomline is that I know that they love me. At the same time, I think that same problem - of my parents loving me but not knowing how to show it - has been imparted into me. And I know it, and I do not know how to solve it. Maybe I solve it by making a joke out of it? Laughter, is afterall, the best medicine, as the saying goes. I'm not sure if stevo - my cell leader - can help me solve it, because I think the problem goes way back in my own early childhood. Yes... I believe prayers work. And so I will try my best to pray and look out for the boys under my care, despite my own inadequacies as a cell leader. It is nights like this when I feel really drained and helpless about being a cell leader, or core team leader for the matter. No amount of charisma and pseudo philosophies can solve the riddles and complexities of the inner struggles of someone that you are leading, or for the matter, yourself. At the end of the day, the hope lies in the strength of the Living Christ that He will somehow return me, and my friend(s), to a 'new' tabula rasa that will allow us "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph).