Episode 5: Theological Guideposts

This conversation explores the multifaceted nature of parenting, emphasizing the importance of spiritual guidance, community support, and resilience in child development. The speakers discuss the dynamics of leading children, the acceptance of parenting challenges, and the role of experiences in shaping a child's growth. This is a deep dive into The Me I Was Made To Be: Helping Christian Parents Navigate The Identity Conversation by Christie Penner Worden.

Transcript

Jo Hobbis (00:00)
Well, Christie, hello. Here we are then, Theological Guideposts. I am really excited to talk about this today because this is my absolute favourite chapter in the book. And I think that is mainly because I'd really, really like to go on a long walk with you. We've never managed to do that, have we? Where would we go?

Christie Penner Worden (00:02)
Hi.

No, we haven't. It's true.

Well, I mean, it's unfair to you really, but you talk about the beautiful seaside walks that you get to have where you live. So if I had my choice, I would come to you and we would go on a long. Yeah, I would like to come to you and I would like you to point out all the things because you've sent me pictures of where you have prayed or what God spoke to you or where you've sat. And I can and I want to put the pieces of the puzzle together and walk that walk and

Jo Hobbis (00:30)
Yeah, yeah.

well, yeah, I mean, you're very welcome.

Christie Penner Worden (00:52)
and walk and pray with you on that walk one day. That would be lovely. I mean, that's the very, in fairness, that's the very  sweet answer and the very like we're Christians answer. But there are other places I'd like to go for a walk too. Like I would, you know, I'd love to walk in a place where neither of us have been before. Like.

Jo Hobbis (00:55)
⁓ that would be so nice. That would be so nice. Let's do that. Okay.

⁓ yeah, see that would be scary for me I think.

Christie Penner Worden (01:22)
That's why I started the way I did.

Jo Hobbis (01:25)
But okay, I'll come with you.

Christie Penner Worden (01:28)
Like some sort of adventure in a part of the world where neither of us speak the language and we have to like, we have to get like...

Jo Hobbis (01:35)
you've always got to take it a step further as well haven't you like

we can't even speak the language I was just going to Scotland

Christie Penner Worden (01:40)
No, like when...

Well, and I think like, what's that Amazing Race? That's what we should do together. That's what we should do. Right? At least you have clues. And you'll keep me from, you know, treading too far off course. And I will do all the weird and scary things. I'll eat the weird things and I'll climb the heights and, you know, but I think maybe that's what we should aim for is Amazing Race.

Jo Hobbis (01:51)
⁓ yes!

Okay.

Okay.

 I think we call it Race Across the World, but it's the same thing. Yeah. Okay.

Christie Penner Worden (02:15)
Same, yes, yes. There are planes,

trains and automobiles and a lot of gymnastics as it would seem in some of those episodes. So we'll do that.

Jo Hobbis (02:24)
Yeah, yeah.

Okay, let's finish the podcast first before we sign up, hey? So theological guideposts then is the longest chapter in the book. And in it, you refer to the identity conversation as a long walk in the same direction. So my first question is how can we make sure we're setting off from the same place as our kids?

Christie Penner Worden (02:29)
Okay.

Well, that's a really interesting question, I think, because thinking we have to set the map or wanting to set the map as a parent happens almost immediately once they're born. For some people that happens when they find out the sex of their baby inside. So now we know it's a boy or a girl and this is gonna be their name and we decorate accordingly and we, you know.

Jo Hobbis (03:10)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (03:21)
We have dreams and visions and imaginations for what our kids are gonna be when they grow up. And it's that same query I had in one of the other episodes is are we asking the right question when we say, what do you wanna be when you grow up rather than who do you want to be when you grow up? Now, having said that, there is a good length of time and it definitely feels longer than the second half of parenting. If we look at...

childhood in two parts even, or like childhood and adolescence. The first part definitely feels longer, especially in the early months. I mean, did it really only take three weeks to do that? it's just, the days are long, the nights are longer, sleep is too short. But I think like in fairness, we do have to take the lead in that,

Jo Hobbis (03:55)
man, the first three weeks, the longest of my life.

Thanks!

Christie Penner Worden (04:18)
part during childhood to some degree or another, we have to want, know, if a child is going to reach for the stovetop and they're about to put their sweet, soft little padded hand on an element that's turned on, we don't want them to learn by experience in that case. We want to warn them, we want to jump and rescue them, we want to pull them back and say, here's why you can't do that, you will hurt yourself.

And so there are places we have to lead or step in or intervene. And there are a lot of those in the early years of  parenting, especially. I think it can feel like there's more as we go into adulthood or adolescence, just because they see more, they're told more, they experience the world more, they have more coming at them, more information.

all the social media, the hours online. And so I think, especially for me, I felt this tension of, well, I want to make sure they don't end up on the wrong accounts. And I want to make sure that they are understanding it properly, or I want them to land here or there. And I think that has been my mistake in the second half of parenting and probably where the Theological Guideposts came from and probably where my tears along the long walk

came from when I found myself on my knees crying out to Jesus as I listened to Taya's song, Mercy. Like the mercy I need.

Jo Hobbis (05:50)
Yeah, and

I need to recommend, because what I did when I was reading the book was then find that song and listen to it in that moment, just so that I could have the full experience. I'm just putting that out there as a recommendation for anyone who's reading the book.

Christie Penner Worden (06:02)
Yeah.

Yeah,

and it's her first solo album. So it's just called Taya and it's the track Mercy and you can find it on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever you listen to music. I didn't realize how much mercy, like I was definitely in the process of beating myself up as I walked and what have I done wrong and why won't she walk with me and why.

This isn't the way I thought it would be. Like how many times do we say that as a parent? This isn't the way I thought it would be or this isn't the way it's supposed to be. All the preconceived notions that we've had all along. I think what God spoke to me in that moment was how much mercy God has for me. And that like, don't beat yourself up for trying to do the right thing. And it might not be that you've done the wrong thing. It's just that we need to do a different

Jo Hobbis (06:45)
Mm.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (06:57)
thing. To know that the guide posts, you can't set too many up in advance of your child walking it out. You can't set too many more up than they can see. Meaning if you get too far ahead of them, they may take a turn and say, what happened? Where did you go? And so I think being attuned to where they're headed and the type of questions they're asking and leaving room

Jo Hobbis (07:07)
Hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (07:26)
that at some point they may take the lead is really, important. I'll give a simple, it's not simple, but it's an easy to understand example of something that just happened this morning. And of course, isn't that the kindness of the Holy Spirit to land it in my lap? I made this very mistake this morning. So whether I've learned anything from writing the Theological Guideposts remains to be seen.  But.

One of my kids is taking a construction course in high school right now. And so they,  in their class, they needed to build a model of what they're going to  build to scale. So for example, I hope you can see this, but it's definitely like a framed out room for construction, right? Like it's just, it looks exactly like what's behind the walls of a house, but it's one and a half.

Jo Hobbis (08:17)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (08:23)
This is one and a half scale and she will build it  16 times. This is what it's there's precision. Now she got a hundred percent on this. And so you can see, and all the corners, the way I don't remember what they're called. She told me, she told me what all these things are called. She knows the names of it. She knows why it is the way it is. And there was even a concrete slab for a foundation that she built  that they had to even drill a line in or 

Jo Hobbis (08:28)
It's very good. It's excellent.

there you go.

Christie Penner Worden (08:52)
saw a line in so that it would crack where you want it to crack. And she just got 100 % on this whole thing. She's very, very good at stuff like this. Always really good at Lego, at construction, at just sort of conceptualizing and visualizing and then making it happen. It's quite a talent. And I'm fascinated by her talent in this place. It shouldn't surprise me at all because she's always been a kid that could...

wrap her head around an idea and then actually make the idea come to life. The problem was she showed me this in the car when I picked her up. And my very first question was, I wonder if you'll want to be an architect.

Jo Hobbis (09:34)
Yeah, we do that. We do that all the time.

Christie Penner Worden (09:38)
We do that. And her response, knowing me and also having been on that walk with me, like, have I learned nothing, she might as well have said, was, I knew you were going to ask that. I knew you were going to ask that. She said, I don't think so.

Jo Hobbis (09:46)
haha

Christie Penner Worden (09:55)
Here's why. So she had already given it some thought. Someone at school has probably asked her. She has a friend who definitely wants to be an architect and she said, that friend has to take this and this and this course and those courses don't actually interest me at all. So if that's the path to what architecture looks like, then I know it's not for me.

And like, I just realized there were so many other questions I could have asked. Well, and it wasn't even a question. It was a statement. I wonder if you'll be an architect. I wonder if you want to be an Instead of...

Jo Hobbis (10:22)
Mm, yeah. But we do

that. think it's like, don't beat yourself up too much. Because we do this with our kids all the time, because we're wondering, aren't we? And God's given us this incredible person. it's the excitement of parenthood, of imagining how they're going to be and what they're going to do. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (10:35)
We are!

Yes!

I'm so curious. Yeah. And anything that

looks like engineering of any sort to me, and I know, you know, two out of 10, that's what I know about engineering. I know the word and I know generally what maybe people do who do that job. Maybe. But I know what they have to be good at in order to go into engineering at university. And I just, since she was little, I've just always wondered if she'd be an engineer.

Jo Hobbis (10:56)
You ⁓

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (11:11)
And so

even the types of toys  that I would find for her  or that she would ask for were more of a construction engineering bent. And it wasn't that she didn't like them or didn't ask for them. It's that it wouldn't have occurred to me to give my other daughter those toys, because that wasn't what her interest was. there is a penchant towards construction broadly. And I don't mean, you know,

Jo Hobbis (11:24)
Mm-mm.

Christie Penner Worden (11:39)
this kind of construction necessarily, like building from scratch is something she can do that's so good. can build, like she bakes a cake from scratch and then can turn it into something else. She just can take, she can make something out of nothing. And she always has been able to. And so like, I so desperately want to know what her Holy Island is on that long walk. I want to know.

Jo Hobbis (12:02)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (12:05)
What's the whole, where are we supposed to be going? Where do I need to put down the guidepost so that she ends up at Holy Island? And.

Jo Hobbis (12:11)
because

you think it's your job to get her there?

Christie Penner Worden (12:14)
I think that's what I thought as a parent. And that is absolutely not how the long walk happened. And so that long walk in the same direction is a push and pull and not in an aggravated sense, but there's that tension in the rope, right? The hope that she will discover who she was made to be, but where do I drag her along to make sure she doesn't fall off course?

Jo Hobbis (12:16)
Mmm. Mmm.

You all right?

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (12:43)
versus where do I let her lead and then say, hang on a second, we're gonna need a post right here. And so even in the aftermath of writing that book and understanding fully what I meant when I wrote Theological Guideposts, I wonder if we put them down after they've shown us the direction they're going. Like, I wonder if it's hindsight. Now, the problem with hindsight is that you don't wanna put stakes down

Jo Hobbis (12:49)
Mm.

Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (13:13)
where a child has fallen apart or they went the wrong direction and they need correction. But sometimes I think even if that happens, then we note, can say, what if we tried it this way? So there's a togetherness  that needs to be wrestled out intimately with your child. And I think today's parents, Millennials and the older Gen Zs, I think they might be

a little better at that. Like they're far more open to a democracy in the household where if the three or four year old wants chicken fingers for dinner or chicken tenders every single night of the week, I don't think they're fussed by it very much. And they're given democratic choices in places that I never gave choice when my kids were little because I don't think it's reasonable to eat chicken tenders every night of the week. And so we don't eat chicken tenders every night of the week. But there's...

Jo Hobbis (13:48)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (14:10)
there's a real democratic approach, a shift in parenting in the generations younger than me that I've been able to learn from. Like, why would you give up your right to just say, because I said so? there's definite privilege that we can take in parenting that's like, well, we're just not doing that. Now there's also the grabbing their hand off the stove and saying, don't touch, no. And explaining why.

Jo Hobbis (14:23)
Hahaha! ⁓

Christie Penner Worden (14:39)
And the last thing we would ever want is to be like, well, I told you not to touch it and you did. So that's your problem because the degree burns that that child would have. No one wants that for their child. So I think that long walk in the same direction. I think what we really need to just realize and accept and surrender to is that you're not leading any more than your child is the Holy Spirit is.

Jo Hobbis (14:39)
Mm.

Mm.

And I think you say that as well about do we trust the Holy Spirit with our kids? That rings in my ears so often when I'm having these kinds of conversations with my sons. I'm just thinking, do I trust the Holy Spirit with my kids? And honestly, sometimes I don't know if I do, because I don't want to let go. But parenting is a series of letting go, actually, isn't it?

Christie Penner Worden (15:13)
Yes.

Yeah.

Right.

Sure. No, and I...

It is, yeah, like, and it's, it's giving more rope to the tether. Like sometimes it's just giving them a longer rope. And when I talked about it with my, when, my eldest was three and she was probably my easiest three year old. I just didn't know she was easy because she was my first and doing

Jo Hobbis (15:40)
Mmm. Mmm. ⁓

Right,

that's not fair is it? Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (16:01)
anything the first time is amazing. No, it's not.

It's not.  But it's really an age where boundaries begin to get tested. I mean, we see it at two and we see it. We see the push pull when they're little, but until they really have words and you're having dialogue with them and there's an interaction where they can run away from you or they can  they can scribble on the table because they understand what that means after you've said don't scribble on the table. There's all kinds of things

Jo Hobbis (16:12)
Mm-hmm.

Haha.

Christie Penner Worden (16:30)
where they now have information that they can use in obedience or not. They have choices to make at that age differently. And they're called three-nagers for a reason. And I remember calling my mom and saying, if this is what three is like, I don't think I'm gonna be able to handle 13. And my mom's response, it was probably one of the most benevolent parenting tips she ever gave me. And she gave me loads. But her response to that was, well,

Jo Hobbis (16:42)
Ha

Christie Penner Worden (17:00)
It's a good thing you have 10 years to figure that out then, isn't it? And that has been such guiding advice, because it is, I don't parent her the same, I didn't parent her at 13 the same way I did at three, but at 13 I remembered being told that. And the 10 years I had to get to know her meant I would know how to walk with her at 13, because she was showing me who she is all along the same time God was showing me who I am as a mom.

Jo Hobbis (17:04)
Yeah.

Mm.

Mm-mm

Christie Penner Worden (17:31)
And in that time, she met Jesus and she began to live her life differently and more truth and life experience was coming. But I think I still, I still don't want to fully release. I mean, she's an adult now, but the idea of releasing her fully to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, when I'm not sure she necessarily wants to follow the Holy Spirit the way I want her to follow

the Holy Spirit. That's the tension in the hope. That's the tension in the rope that I think we always feel as parents. I think my parents still feel it when they look at some of the choices I make or things they would do. Well, what are you going to do about this? And what are you going to do about it? And I'm looking at them going, so one, none of your business, two, I'm 50.

Jo Hobbis (18:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hahaha

Christie Penner Worden (18:24)
Also, can I come over for dinner? Cause I don't feel like cooking and I need to have a good cry. You know, like I want it both ways with my parents, the same way that our kids want enough rope to lead away from us to go their own way. But they also want to know, I think that they're tethered to something and we can reel them back in when they, when they say help, you know, when they're out, when they're out of their depth, have you given them enough rope where they can be out of their depth

Jo Hobbis (18:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (18:54)
and figure it out, but also close enough that they can yell help and you can be there? Now, I think that's really just a metaphor that we need to  hand over to them that at some point it's Jesus you need to cry it out to. There are some places I cannot rescue you from. There are some places I won't go with you. There are some places I will think you're making a mistake and you'll be on your own to make it. There are some places you'll go and won't tell me. That's the other thing. A lot.

Jo Hobbis (18:59)
Mm.

Mm.

A lot, I think.

Christie Penner Worden (19:24)
There's a lot

of places you're going to go and I won't be with you, then what? Then what? And there are a lot of places that my kids will go that I won't agree with that aren't necessarily wrong. I think that's why putting enough space between the guideposts and putting enough time between putting your stakes in the ground is important. I think we put lots of posts down when they're little because we're so afraid of getting it wrong.

Jo Hobbis (19:36)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (19:53)
But in essence, we've built a fence. We haven't built guideposts. Because guideposts, in my experience of them, it's just enough, they're close just enough to see the next one in a thick fog. Because England, you know. Scotland, fair enough. Yes, the Northern Channel.

Jo Hobbis (19:56)
Yeah, and that's

Well, Scotland. You know, I live

in the English Riviera and it's always tropical here.

Christie Penner Worden (20:14)
⁓ I mean, could it sound any more romantic, Jo? Every

time you talk about where you live, I'm like, it's like it's not even England the way she talks about it. And I do know that southwestern coast because it is where I got to surf the first and only time in my life. And it was spectacular. So I don't doubt that it's, I mean, the English Riviera is exactly what it is. But so where we were in the north, that, you know,

Jo Hobbis (20:34)
Mm.

haha

Christie Penner Worden (20:42)
We had a perfectly clear day, which was just wasn't even fair, like that we got such a beautiful day.  We also saw five rainbows that day, which is nothing but the generosity. I just think, I wonder, like, what does God's face look like when we burst out laughing at his kindness and generosity over and over again? Another one! It's another one! Like, rainbow after rainbow. But I know, given the weather that we walked through,

Jo Hobbis (20:52)
Well.

You

Christie Penner Worden (21:11)
that the guideposts can only be so far as the fog lets you see. We didn't have fog, but generally there would be a thick fog. And so I think that metaphor rings true, that we really do need to give them space. Because if they zigzag between guideposts, does it matter that it took them longer than we thought it should or wanted it

Jo Hobbis (21:16)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes it does, as their mother.

Bye.

Christie Penner Worden (21:41)
You're right.

Because we, I likely think when they're zigzagging, we think they're lost or we think they're off track, but they might be taking their time. And I think with my youngest, in fact, it's not even that she's taking her time. It's that she was discovering things on the seabed floor that I would have missed without her. I really think that's possible that she saw something that catches her eye and she goes towards it. Well, if she can see the next guidepost,

Jo Hobbis (21:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (22:10)
What difference does it make if the tide isn't yet rolling in? If her life isn't in danger, what am I afraid of? It goes back to what we talked about last time. And I think we're afraid of them getting it wrong, but who am I to say that that it's right or wrong? What what do I miss out on by not being curious about where she's headed off when I'm over here going, it's over here. And she's saying, I know. And so

Jo Hobbis (22:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (22:40)
What does that desire to just tread off the direct trail, what does it afford her? And of my three, she's likely been the one to be most curious off path. And I think of the beauty that I would have missed without her. And sometimes, most of the time, it comes later. Today, it came immediately after I said, I wonder if you'll be an architect.

Jo Hobbis (22:48)
Mm.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (23:09)
I knew you were going to say that. She knows that the way my brain works is at Holy Island, as far down there, like where's the goal? How do we get there? Let's put our blinders on and bulldoze towards that. It's almost like who can get, can we get there faster? It's not almost like that. It's absolutely like that. I love to go fast and strong and directly in one direction. And that is not invitational. It's not invitational.

Jo Hobbis (23:15)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

So

we need to slow our pace sometimes then. I'm reminded of when we were last time together in person actually in Nashville and we were walking along the road together and you really had to slow your pace to match mine. I remember you saying, I've never walked this slowly in my life.

Christie Penner Worden (23:41)
Sometimes.

Well, and one of our colleagues actually had a lot of fun making fun of me. We ended up in Florida for a different conference together. And he said that my body, I walk at a 45 degree angle. I'm just so, my head is further in the future than my feet. Like I'm just always walking with intention wherever I go. I don't think it's a particularly  attractive way to walk from his description, but I like,

Jo Hobbis (24:12)
Hahaha!

Christie Penner Worden (24:30)
It's everything is with intention or everything. And that's just me. Like everything is with like, I've got a goal and I'm going to achieve it. And if the goal is here, then it doesn't matter what's on either side. And so there are many times I've lamented what I might've missed. Like I got here and it wasn't what I thought it was. What did I miss along the way? And I think parenthood can be like that too. If you find your child at a stage of life and you wonder where did, where did the little one go?

Jo Hobbis (24:46)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (25:01)
It's like I was talking with a mom a couple of weeks ago. You never know the last time you'll carry your child and put them to bed because they fell asleep in the car.

Jo Hobbis (25:12)
⁓

Don't, you'll make me cry.

Christie Penner Worden (25:15)
you never know the last time you'll give them a bath. Because all of a sudden they'll just say, no, I can do it myself or I want a shower. The first time they transition to a shower instead of sitting with bubbles and boats and squeaky toys in a bubble bath, you never know as a mom who nursed, you're never quite sure the last time you'll nurse a baby. And they'll transition into a different phase of self care, of needing you not

Jo Hobbis (25:18)
Mm.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (25:44)
for nourishment in the same way. They'd still need you to buy groceries, but it's different. You never know, you don't know the first time your child after they get their driver's license will just take the car without you. And for some reason, the world is okay with this and you have to get okay with it too. And you never know those lasts or those firsts necessarily. It's such a precarious balance of giving them more rope.

Jo Hobbis (25:48)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (26:10)
but hanging on to know that you can always reel them back in. And never knowing that last time, I told that mom that I was talking to, I sold my carrier too soon with my last because she was so independent and so wanting to run. She, I mean, she could walk by 10 months and she was off and going, she threw herself into the pool at six months and taught herself to swim. I mean, I was within my reach.

Jo Hobbis (26:15)
Mm.

Good grief.

Christie Penner Worden (26:40)
And we were in a place with lifeguards. was a measure of independence I had not witnessed myself. I'm told that my mother has witnessed that level of independence. And I'm told I might be to blame for that level of independence in my youngest. you don't know the last time, I loved wearing her because I had two other little ones. I had three under five years. And so I needed one hand for each of the little ones and I needed to wear her.

Jo Hobbis (26:48)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (27:08)
I thought I was honoring who she is by like giving my carrier to a dear friend who was like, that's exactly the one I want. I'm like, you know what, take mine. My kid will, she'll never want to ride on my back again. And I realized how much younger we made her hike than our first or second because she could. And I didn't realize the last time I wore the carrier that it was the last time. And so there's that, there's that

Jo Hobbis (27:24)
Mm.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (27:37)
process of letting go and a lot of letting go where you didn't realize you had let go until you realize you will never do it again. I mean, she's a lot taller than me now. She boxes five days a week. I am not wearing that child anywhere. And, you know, you can't spend too much time grieving the would ha', could ha', should ha's but it does.

Jo Hobbis (27:43)
Mm. Mm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (28:06)
It does help to realize that those moments come and letting go of the carrier as early as I did, didn't necessarily, it wasn't necessarily a mistake. It's just something I could have held onto longer, but the decision was made to honor my child. It didn't honor what I wanted as a mom. And I didn't realize I could really hold onto her as a mom if I wanted to. It was more about this isn't for her, this is for me. And I'm gonna let go.

Jo Hobbis (28:23)
Mm.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (28:35)
And that's when we start realizing that we might not be the one out in front. Now, when I let her toddle along, any of my kids toddle along the sidewalk, they don't actually know why there's a sidewalk or a curb or a crosswalk. They have not learned the rules of the road. Yes, which for anyone in North America, she said zebra crossing.

Jo Hobbis (28:50)
Mm. That's a zebra crossing for anyone who's listening in the UK.

We're gonna have to do a whole

different translation of this.

Christie Penner Worden (29:02)
We need a glossary

for the podcast.  Yeah, so a zebra crossing or a crosswalk, as we call it here, even just at an inch. Like, they don't even necessarily know that stepping off a curb is the length of their shin. And that's too much of a jump. And we need to really grab on or hold them back. But there comes a time when any one of our kids might say, Ma, like enough already. Like, I got this.

Jo Hobbis (29:05)
Ha

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (29:33)
And

there has been beauty and joy and delight and grief when I realized that we've passed another guidepost before I realized we were there.

Jo Hobbis (29:41)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (29:47)
So there's a difference in some ways of putting your stake in the ground theologically and then inviting your child to walk along that path.

Jo Hobbis (29:58)
Yeah, let's talk about that because in a bit more detail. Because a few episodes ago, I believe you said that it was OK for us to decide what our theological stakes in the ground are. Like we have those things, we stick our stakes in the ground. And those, I guess, are our guide posts. But this question has been bugging me since you said that.

Christie Penner Worden (30:02)
Huh.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Jo Hobbis (30:25)
What if we line up all those guideposts and actually what we end up creating is a guardrail, is a barrier?

Christie Penner Worden (30:33)
Yeah. What if we do? What if we already have? So the easy answer, which I don't think is a very fair answer, but the easy answer I'll start with is you can move guideposts. I think the expression stake in the ground makes it sound permanent. And those guideposts along St. Cuthbert's Way, you know, going from Lindisfarne to Holy Island,

Jo Hobbis (30:37)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it does.

Christie Penner Worden (31:03)
They've been there for hundreds and hundreds of years. So they're not going anywhere, it would seem. And likely if one toppled over for some reason, it would be quickly replaced. But having a theological stake in the ground, it's also okay to have one and for your child to not line up with it. Now, yeah, sorry.

Jo Hobbis (31:25)
Ooh, ouch. 

Christie Penner Worden (31:30)
I don't know that I've landed in the same place as my parents theologically. And they've afforded me the freedom and the intelligence, the charitable assumption that I am intelligent and that where I've landed is with purpose, on purpose, for a good purpose.

Jo Hobbis (31:36)
Okay.

Christie Penner Worden (31:57)
And we've learned that we don't necessarily have to agree theologically. I think there comes a time as children approach adulthood, even age of reason. So when we look at like nine to 12, they start going from concrete thinkers to more metaphorical,  more  creative thinkers. That's not fair. They're very creative when they're little, less 

Jo Hobbis (32:03)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (32:23)
If you say, that's a hard question. Well, it's not hard like wood is hard.

Jo Hobbis (32:29)
Yeah,

I've got a really good example of this from my Sunday school group. just, I love this. So the kids that I lead are aged seven to 10. And  we were talking about Jesus having brothers and sisters. And this is quite surprising to some of the kids.

Christie Penner Worden (32:33)
Tell me. Tell me.

Great, you're right in the thick of Age of Reason.

Yeah.

Jo Hobbis (32:56)
And so we start talking about Jesus' brother James, and how he decided to follow Jesus. And one of the kids said, well, that's annoying. I was like, What do you mean that's annoying? He said, having your brother follow you everywhere, that's really annoying. Okay, we need to explain this more. We need to explain this better. But I love that concrete thinking. I, yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (33:16)
Thanks

Yes.

Yeah.

Jo Hobbis (33:23)
I

always think following, yeah, okay, really annoying. Really annoying.

Christie Penner Worden (33:28)
Absolutely. Yeah. And they

don't, you can't use metaphor or, or any sort of like allegorical, like storytelling has to be more direct. You have to, or else they don't get it and they don't feel invited into it. So I think as we move through age of reason, that's when we really start hearing the question, which would have come up at three as well, in fairness to my mom, the thing that's the same between a three-nager and a 13 year old

teenager is that they both ask the question why far more often than we have the answer. And I think what's difficult as a parent is we really, really want to have the answer. And for so much of the early years, we do have the answer when we can even fudge the answer when they're little, because at some point they won't remember. It's fine. I always felt like I got a pass for the first two years because they're not going to remember anything from before two years old. whatever I

Christie Penner Worden (34:24)
Whatever

I said now, I'll get a do-over at some point, which I do not recommend, 100 % do not recommend that parenting formula because, well, I may have taken liberties.  But this idea that we can't move the guidepost or that they can't put their own down, that's really important to give good sober thought to, meaning, yes.

Jo Hobbis (34:27)
Yeah.

haha

⁓ putting their own down is interesting.

Christie Penner Worden (34:54)
If we believe that children can have a relationship with Jesus, and if we believe that when a child comes into relationship with Jesus, they're given the gift of the Holy Spirit, like Jesus says, one better than me, I will leave you with a guide and a friend who will never leave you. If we believe that, and I believe it for me, so I have to, if my theology is not wishy washy and it's not based on human behavior, but rather based on this divine  word of God, both who Jesus is and

what Jesus said and the whole of scripture, then we have to believe it's not only possible, but it's true for our kids. So what if they are following? And what if they're not? What if they put a stake in the ground that they're gonna need to move later? Like how do we get to show up in that place? Here's the other thing, mine have moved over time. The church I was raised in, the stakes were put down for you.

And if you deviated from the stakes, you were excommunicated from the community. So that is a type of guidepost. I mean, we can watch all kinds of reality TV shows about how well that goes for the closed communities with shunning as a holistic principle to how we get through life.

If we want to afford our children the grace and beauty and mercy of growth that the Holy Spirit leads us through, which inevitably means  change, then we also have to afford our child, our children, those we love, the right to choose. And that's where life gets messy. I've had to move some of my stakes just because, you know, I did at 15.

Jo Hobbis (36:37)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (36:43)
when I was kicked out of the church, I had to figure out like, am I wrong or are they wrong? Which, I mean, what other question would a 15 year old ask who's wired like me? Like, it's not gonna be like, maybe we both could be right. No, someone's wrong here because I don't think Jesus kicks people out of his kingdom. Someone got it wrong. And if I got it wrong, I want the chance to make it right. And if they got it wrong, I want the freedom to live in peace with what I know to be true about who Jesus is.

Turns out, I believe they got it wrong and I found a very, very, very beautiful path with Jesus at 15 that I don't know that I would have found without that life experience. Was it excruciating? A million times 10, it was excruciating. Was it worth it? Yes. Now, having said that, I think we need to pause on the word choice. Because when I was parenting little ones, I would try to give my kids choices.

Jo Hobbis (37:34)
Okay.

Christie Penner Worden (37:41)
But what my mom always told me is you have to be able to live with the outcome of both choices. So as a parent, you can give choices, but like you've got to live with giving them the choice because they're going to choose A or B. So don't give them a choice that you can't follow through on because that's just not common. So it's and don't make a threat that you're not willing to stand up for. Like if you say, if you do this, this will happen. You actually have to be willing to follow through. So it really makes like

Jo Hobbis (37:53)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (38:10)
discipline. It clarifies how you want to discipline, which of course comes from the same root word as disciple. If you want them to follow the ways that you're showing to them, you have to live with the consequences. Also, it gets messy when an older child looks at the consequences of another child and says, hey, how come when I did this, this happened? And when they did that, it didn't happen. And one of my

Jo Hobbis (38:36)
I mean that is just the narrative

in families everywhere I think, is it not?

Christie Penner Worden (38:40)
Well, thank you for that grace because I hope it's not just me. But I remember what my mom told me when I asked that question, like, wait a second, this is what happened for my brother. How come that isn't happening for me? And there are two answers that I remember her giving. One, would you like me to make all the same mistakes on you that I made on your brother? Because I can do that. I can make all the same mistakes, but I'm trying to learn as I go. The other answer she gave me was, I will never be as hard on you as you are on yourself.

Jo Hobbis (38:44)
No! ⁓

Christie Penner Worden (39:09)
And I think you're far too hard on yourself already. She was parenting the person, not the problem. And I think that's important to keep in mind if you're parenting more than one child as well. And  in today's family fiber and the fabric that makes that family, you've got blended families, you've got adoptive families, you've got foster families, you've got biological families. And I think... 

Jo Hobbis (39:15)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (39:36)
It's fair to say that it doesn't matter what type of fabric makes up your family. You've got one of each, no matter what they are. Not one of them is going to be the same like we talked about. They aren't born, they don't spit out an instruction manual at birth and say, here we go. This is how this one works. It's not kind and it's not fair, but it's true. Now to get back to the idea of choice, the theology, the theological stake around choice that I am so grateful to have

learned and to have stuck rigidly in the ground is probably the one that causes me the most grief and the most joy. But to give a child choice and know that you have to live with whatever the outcome is, is showing and telling your children, I love you enough to make a decision. I love you enough to make a decision. Now, what does that sound like? God had two humans in the garden.

Jo Hobbis (40:27)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (40:36)
and he loved them enough to make a decision. Now, I don't think Adam and Eve ever questioned God's guidance or God's perspective or God's desire for them to not eat from the tree, not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. That was clear instruction. Please do not eat that fruit. That is the only thing. I'm giving you one caveat to this whole roam freely and delightfully in this

perfect garden. There was one caveat. I don't think it ever occurred to them to deviate away from what God was saying because God loves them. God is perfect in his love and God gave them the caveat and why would you do something that someone who loves you so much asks you not to do? Other than I think we get it wrong when we talk about the fall having happened at that tree.

Jo Hobbis (41:26)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (41:32)
The fall had to happen before that in order for there to be a snake. And so there was a fall in the spiritual realm that we have to acknowledge because first of all, let's stop blaming Eve. They were both there. They both made choices. They both found themselves naked. So like, let's just put that to bed. But the fall actually wasn't on them. And what's beautiful about the idea of choice

Jo Hobbis (41:37)
Okay, yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (42:01)
What's beautiful about the idea of love and choosing to love someone is that if God is love, which scripture tells us, if God is love, then God can't choose to not love us. His love is perfect. That's what it means. It endures forever. Why? Because God is the embodiment

Jo Hobbis (42:22)
Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (42:29)
in all forms in the Trinity of love itself. So God will never leave you or forsake you. God loves you. God loves you. He can't not love you. He will not withhold his love from you. His love goes as far as the east is to the west. There are so many examples in scripture of God's love not being able to end. But God chooses for love to be that way. And so in fact, in order for us to love

Jo Hobbis (42:50)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (42:59)
God back. God had to give us choice. And because that love had already been given in the spiritual, and there had already been a fall in the spiritual, there was a temptation that was presented to choose. The snake gave Adam and Eve a choice. They didn't know that the choice they were making was a choice contrary to love. That when you love someone, when you love God,

Jo Hobbis (43:16)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (43:28)
And God says this is the way that you get to choose to trust God fully in that. And you actually don't have to test whether that's true or not. But you will because of the fall. The greatest, I think, the greatest grief of the Father's heart is that in order for it to be love, it had to be choice.

Jo Hobbis (43:53)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (43:55)
And in giving us that choice, we have chosen wrong, wrongly, upon occasion to be gentle, upon occasion. But when we choose to love him back, that gift of the Holy Spirit is all ours. We get equal measure. We get a full portion, not only of God's love, but of God's presence by way of the Holy Spirit. And so I think when we're talking about our kids putting down their own

Jo Hobbis (43:59)
Mm.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (44:24)
guideposts, or maybe whacking one of ours over. think about downhill slalom skiing, where I don't know why they bang into the posts all the way down. Like that just doesn't seem to be the most efficient way, but we can hit them, but not knock them over. It's very strange. I've never tried it, not going to. That's the way I die. If I do anything, slalom skiing would be a very fast way for me to die. But off the list we're not skiing.

Jo Hobbis (44:30)
yeah.

Haha!

Okay, we'll cross that off the list of things that we get to do then. I'm okay with that as well.

Christie Penner Worden (44:54)
if we're gonna walk it's I will jump out of an airplane long before I will try slalom skiing and  and I think you know we watch them bump into it we're like it's right there how did you miss it like how could you walk into it or they got so far off track by our definition that I'm like they're gonna miss it the fog's too dense they're already too far west they're gonna I'm over

Here, we're screaming from this distance and they've wandered off and they're probably saying, yeah, I know, leave me alone. I got this, I'm fine, I want this. And so in the very definition of loving our children, we also have to afford  them choice. And it's very painful, but it's equally rewarding.

Jo Hobbis (45:29)
He

Christie Penner Worden (45:50)
I think even in the pain, even if they make a wrong choice, by their own definition, a wrong choice, they've made a bad choice and they come running back and look to you. There is something so glorious about the fact that they knew they could come home.

Jo Hobbis (46:04)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (46:05)
There is a real gift in acknowledging that the prodigal son is all of us. I always tended to  identify with the older brother. Like, that's not fair. Why does he get a party when he wasted all your money and ran away and did all the things you're not supposed to do? Why does he get a party? Do you realize that there is a party in heaven every time we turn around and say, I'm sorry, Jesus, I'm with you.

Jo Hobbis (46:16)
yeah, me too! Yeah! ⁓

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (46:36)
Do we know that we are the prodigal that gets welcomed home no matter how much time we wasted, no matter how far off the trail we went? I believe there are enough scriptural guideposts to stick with Jesus the whole way. I also believe we will choose not to because we have not yet embodied perfect love. But that's why we get do-overs. That's why God is a God of mercy. And as it says in

in the Psalms as David, know, who else needed it any more than we did or as much as we did. Thank God for David, where he says new mercies every morning, new mercies every morning. And it's our chance to have a do-over. And the do-over isn't to show up like the older son tomorrow, because the older son sinned against his brother in his wrath, in his anger, in his disappointment. And he was very disrespectful to his father.

Jo Hobbis (47:12)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (47:33)
The do-over is the chance to come home every time we've wandered off. We get to come home and say, I was wrong. Can we try again?

Jo Hobbis (47:45)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (47:46)
The generosity of choice that love requires means they might get it wrong, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna come back to your way. The hope when we've placed our guideposts far apart as kid and grownup, as child and parent, the hope is that somehow both of us would find our way to Jesus' guideposts. That just because this is the guidepost I needed,

Jo Hobbis (48:12)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (48:17)
on my journey with Jesus, on my long walk in the same direction. It doesn't mean that God is going to get my kid or my loved ones to that same post. It means the Holy Spirit's going to lead that person to themselves, back to God, back to the Trinity, back to the Holy Spirit, back to Jesus and the ways of Jesus. And so we know perfect love casts out fear. We know that.

Jo Hobbis (48:39)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (48:45)
And if God is love incarnate, love, if as we say at Christmas, love came down, if Jesus is the embodiment of that perfect love, and if we know that love, then we know there is no fear in Christ. What are we afraid of as parents?

Jo Hobbis (48:51)
Yeah.

We're afraid of them being different to us actually, sometimes.

Christie Penner Worden (49:08)
Yeah,

I'm afraid that they might wander away from Jesus. I think that's a  real fear that they won't come into deep, loving, life-changing relationship with the Holy Spirit. But how would I know what to look for in that? I think the only thing we can look for is evidence of Jesus. So if, in fact, the me I was made to be is found in

the way I look more and more like Jesus, the way I sound more and more like Jesus, the way I make decisions like Jesus, then we should be able to recognize any Jesusiness, not only in one another, but in our kids. And...

Isn't it a delight that it might be spectacularly differently than the way I show up? If each one of us has the opportunity to reflect a different aspect of God's own image back to the world around themselves, then don't I want it to be spectacularly different? Don't I want it to be a prism of light, a  glorious moment where you have to shield your eyes because God's glory has shown up? Do we not want that for each person? And if so,

Jo Hobbis (50:11)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (50:25)
Can we be a little less afraid to let them figure out what it means for them to look more and more like Jesus and become who they were meant to be? Because they weren't meant to be more and more like me, even though there are family resemblances. The family resemblance we're actually after is Jesus. It's Jesus.

Jo Hobbis (50:42)
haha

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, shall we stop there, Christie? Because I feel like just stopping on Jesus is the perfect, perfect ending.

Christie Penner Worden (50:53)
Thank

But

Let's stop there and be gentle with one another and say that you are still becoming, you are still making choices, dear listener, dear friend, dear reader, you are still making choices that either look like love or don't. And you still get to come home smelling like a pig pen with nothing but dirt in your pockets. You still get to come home every day, five times a day, 10 times a day.

Perfect love casts out fear. God is love. And when you choose to be loved in that way, in that miraculous new mercy way, you get to choose in to a love that knows no end. But you also get to choose to learn how to love your kids the same way God has loved you as a good father. So be gentle, go lightly, don't plant the stakes so firmly

Jo Hobbis (51:51)
Mm. Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (51:58)
that God himself can't move them.

Jo Hobbis (52:04)
Amazing. Thank you. Speak soon.

Christie Penner Worden (52:08)
See you soon.