Did your adult children end up doing what you thought they would professionally? Did they choose the career path you imagined for them when your were raising them? Every time I think about it, I’m amazed at how things turned out in our home!
“We humans make plans, but the Lord has the final word.” (Proverbs 16:1 CEV)
Each of us wants what’s best for our children. We observe them as they’re maturing and based on what we see—coupled with who we are as people and our own prejudices and expectations—we try to expose them to the things we feel they will need later on to help them become the people we feel they should be. And while sometimes we guess well, at other times we’re so far off!
I see my side of our family as verbally-oriented: we tend to choose work that requires self-expression and articulation. My grandfather and uncle were attorneys, as is a cousin; my grandmother and great-aunt were teachers; I myself write, but work in sales for a living—we even had a missionary in our more distant family tree! So when our son took to words and won the spelling bees—even competing nationally in DC—I fast-tracked him in my mind into law.
During his high school years, I signed him up for debate and drove over 100 miles to get him there every week, spent money having him compete in various multi-day regional tournaments, and selected a college that I felt would best prepare him for a legal career.
The only problem was that I got it wrong. I interjected too much of myself into him and my aspirations for him. I had considered studying law, but was prevented from doing so; now, I was looking at him to complete what I had not been able to—not at what he was genuinely suited for—and had missed that we are also highly skewed toward the artistic. Law wasn’t his bent—what he was hard-wired for, so to speak—and I’m grateful that he was able to express that to me the summer before his last year of high school. Once he did, we concluded that architecture was a better fit. He is now successfully employed in the field and has already passed three of the six sections of the highly competitive ARE architecture licensing exam!
Our first daughter had a different—yet similarly misguided—false start. She did well in Latin at the elementary levels and begged, from sixth or seventh grade on, for me to sign her up for Japanese language classes. After her first year of Japanese at the high school level she won a scholarship to be an exchange student in Japan for six weeks; subsequently she was admitted to a Japanese university, where she studied for four years and from which she graduated.
Because she seemed to take to the study of languages, it was perhaps not unreasonable that I envisioned a career in translation or interpretation for her. Yet once she had graduated she did not want to remain in Japan. I encouraged her to consider grad school to hone her interpretive skills, but she was burned out and didn’t want to hear about it.
The truth, as she later admitted to me, was that she chose to study Japanese because it was the only thing she could think of at the time, that she felt she was good at. And while her time there gave her confidence and experiences she otherwise wouldn’t have had, they had nothing to do with the career she ultimately chose for herself in Human Resources. But where did that come from?
Human Resources wasn’t as obscure a choice as it seemed. Because we homeschooled and her social interactions were limited, I allowed our older daughter to get into the online gaming world. Through that she made friends from around the globe (one, whom she has been friends with since her early high school years, actually travelled to her graduation in Japan; together, they met up with another gaming friend who lives in Tokyo!).
But more significantly, she gained an unexpected skill through online gaming during her middle school and high school years. At the time, “clans” were a thing; different online groups managed by whoever started them. Some were small, some were very large; some were well-managed, others less so; some were active, some not so much. She started out joining an existing clan at thirteen; gained invaluable management skills as she moved up the ranks in responsibility; eventually got frustrated at the clan’s mismanagement; and ultimately—with the encouragement and support of an online friend—began and successfully managed her own clan of about fifty people.
And that experience is what she ultimately came back to when she determined she wanted to pursue a career in Human Resources—she realized she enjoyed and was actually good at managing people. Now, she is very happily employed as an HR manager at a new Amazon facility.
We do have three children, though (with about five years between each), and right now, our last child—our second daughter—has just begun her college career at an art school in Canada. She, like her brother before her, draws—very well—and is planning on choosing animation as her major after her first year. Is that the career she will ultimately work in? I don’t know. I do know that I love her drawings—both the ones she does by hand and the ones she does on her laptop—and that she is a more quiet soul than her siblings. Will this be a good fit? Will she distinguish herself and successfully build a career in the field? Will she gain greater knowledge through this first year and select another art major or confirm her desire to animate? Again, I don’t know.
What’s my point? I’m not sure I have one, except to say that life is amazing, and that sometimes what we think is going to happen doesn’t. Today’s verse says, “We humans make plans, but the Lord has the final word.”
It’s so amazingly true! Even with our grown children, we don’t know exactly where they’ll end up—not really. Our son has acquired the skills required to obtain that coveted (I say coveted because it is so difficult to acquire) architecture licensure. Will he practice in the field? Will he become a partner? Will he open his own firm? Or will he branch off into something else? I don’t know. I just know that I want him—as well as all of our children—to look forward to waking up and going to work; to have more positive than negative experiences at what he does; to feel he’s on top of things and successfully contributing to building and doing something good—that his life matters; that he is in Christ and blessed.
Will our first daughter make Business Partner, as she hopes to, in a year or two? I genuinely believe she will—but I don’t know for certain. Where would she go from there? Will she be happy? Will she feel like she has accomplished what she wanted to? Again, will she feel like she is thriving in God’s favor?
And our youngest? Will she too find her place in life? Will she live at peace and happy in Christ? God knows the answer to all my questions—as He always did!
Proverbs, Chapter 16:
“We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer.
People may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives.
Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.
The Lord has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster.
The Lord detests the proud; they will surely be punished.
Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin.
By fearing the Lord, people avoid evil.
When people’s lives please the Lord, even their enemies are at peace with them.
Better to have little, with godliness, than to be rich and dishonest.
We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.
The Lord demands accurate scales and balances; he sets the standards for fairness.
How much better to get wisdom than gold, and good judgment than silver!
The path of the virtuous leads away from evil; whoever follows that path is safe.
Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.
Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud.
Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the Lord will be joyful.
The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive.
Discretion is a life-giving fountain to those who possess it, but discipline is wasted on fools.
From a wise mind comes wise speech; the words of the wise are persuasive.
Kind words are like honey— sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.
There is a path before each person that seems right [opposing God], but it ends in death.
It is good for workers to have an appetite; an empty stomach drives them on.
Scoundrels create trouble; their words are a destructive blaze. A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends. Violent people mislead their companions, leading them down a harmful path. With narrowed eyes, people plot evil; with a smirk, they plan their mischief.
Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained by living a godly life.
Better to be patient than powerful; better to have self-control than to conquer a city.
We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.”
(Proverbs 16:1-9, 11, 16-33 NLT)
Dear Jesus Christ,
You were in the beginning, You were with God, You were, and eternally continue to be, God;
Help us call on You in faith; empower and enable us to be everything You want us to be;
Help us not gain the world and lose our souls;
Help us not store up wrath for the day of judgment, but have a lavish welcome into eternity;
Help us store up treasure with You, where it will be waiting for us in You.
Amen.
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