Too many adults under one roof this winter break?

How many of you have young adults living under your roof during christmas break? I have two of them. They seem to be very tired and always missing their phone chargers. They also are absolutely full of passion and acumen as they figure out who they actually are out from under my roof. They are teaming with new knowledge and heady with worldly wisdom and fresh insights. They are learning as much away from me as they learned from me while they were still with me. It's a beautiful thing to watch. I'm truly learning to respect their developing and/or fully-developed opinions, vision and sagaciousness. They are amazing young adults and, in short, they are my greatest joy and my heart's delight (Jeremiah 15:16). 

They are also, I have found, the greatest revealers of MY character. I just keep learning and learning and learning about the things I've done well AND the things I haven't done well. About how the tenacity and grit I thought I had as a parent was just as often a weakness as it was a strength. About how that, in some things, I can rest in the fact that my parenting was always driven from a heart that desired to follow and honor God (2 Timothy 1:12) BUT, at the same time, the tendencies of my personal drive and temperament - my fleshly, sinful temperament -often spilled into their lives in the form of inflexibility, misunderstanding and a blind lack of empathy. In short, my self-righteousness is/was ugly and I'm learning how exhausting it is to insist on thinking so highly of myself with such mounting evidence to the contrary.

So now what? Well, as my young adult children teach me I'm actually beginning to humble myself and listen. Consequently, my eyes are seeing things in a fresh, appreciative way so that, in turn, my rapport with them can continue to grow instead of grind to a halt as I watch powerlessly from the sidelines as they grow away from me.

And the beautiful thing about all this is this: Humility breeds humility. As I admit my flaws to them, they graciously build ME up with kindnesses I don't deserve. As I let them blossom into the lovely creatures God created them to be (instead of mercilessly standing my ground), they...blossom. As I put a figurative crown on their heads and treat them as God treats me - with love, compassion and forgiveness - he let's me watch them grow into that crown and reap the benefits of a life spent trusting God AND learning from mistakes (theirs and mine).

In short, I know the One in Whom I trust and I am sure that He is able to guard that which He has entrusted to me until the day of His return. God, who called [me] is faithful; He will do it (2 Timothy 1:12 & 1 Thessalonians 5:24, emphasis mine).

Oh yeah, and one last tip: When your phone chargers go missing, major on the majors!