I remember the years when my three sons were small. They were so loud– in the most full-of-life way. As an introvert who loves time spent deeply thinking, I often longed for the sound of sheer silence. And during those years when children feel like barnacles clinging to your legs, I also longed for space. Those were appropriate desires, especially considering the all-encompassing call of mothering in those pivotal years.

Now that I am walking alongside those same sons-turned-young-men in a very different season of parenting, I must tell you that I have silence and space in spades. To be honest, I miss the noise and the obvious neediness of the earlier seasons of parenting. This is not to say that I have quiet sons–no one who knows them would ever say such a thing. One of them is notorious for never having had an inside voice, and when we play cards together, the decibel level in our home changes notably (sorry, neighbors; we are a competitive bunch).

It’s just that there is so much happening below the water line with teenagers. They are processing so much, moving so quickly, and carrying so much. Their silence is pregnant with desires and dreams and fears and failures and insecurities. As their worlds grow appropriately, the shared spaces become more sparse. My husband and I fight over who gets to pick them up or drive them to things. Those car times are coveted corners of our days. I eagerly wait for their curfew so I can hear the spoils of their days and listen to their adventures (or their woes, depending on the moment).

Parenting teenagers means learning to respect silence while also courting conversation–both of which are powered by prayer.

As much as I want a wire that could connect my mind to theirs to know all the goings on in their crazy craniums, no such wire exists. And that is a good thing. Part of the sacredness of these years is giving them enough silence & space to become and enough conversation & presence to remind them they are not alone as they do so.

It’s a funny dance. It’s hard to read when they need you to pry and when they need you to hold back to give them space to wrestle it out. But, I have learned to trust the Spirit’s prompting. If my heart simply cannot rest until I’ve asked a few more questions, I will push, reminding my children that I love to hear what’s going on and that I love to parent them. That said, I feel like I apologize as much in this season as I did when they were small. I have to apologize for hovering or my maternal micromanagement. I have to apologize for not listening well or speaking too often or too emphatically.

Every time my sons speak up and let us into their inner worlds, I am deeply honored. This is the stuff of our prayers. These beautiful messy, heavy, hard conversations are what we have been working towards since they were toddlers. There aren’t quick answers. There aren’t quick fixes. There is mostly sitting with them right there in the middle of the tangled mess and pointing them to our shared Savior.

I wrote this poem after a recent car conversation with one of my sons mostly to remind myself the truth. But I pray that it would be a blessing to other parents of teenagers who are trying to simultaneously steward silence while courting crucial conversations.

I hope 

I hope that one day you’ll know the terrible joy
Of sitting next to your son in the car, 
Parked in the driveway with his playlist as background,
Hearing his heart and holding his story
With the ferocity of a dragon and the tenderness which belongs chiefly to mothers.

I hope that one day you’ll sit in such a scared space,
Where he feels safe enough to air all the angst of the teenage years
Even if it means your own heart is rent in the hearing. 

Let the Lord fill those aching gaps;
Don’t be too quick to fill them. 
Those fissures will be stitched with fine filaments of grace in perfect timing— which is very different than parental timing, you should know.

I hope you’ll feel His scarred hands holding you as attempt to hold tensions you didn’t create and cannot fix. 

May “What is mentionable is manageable”
Be the mantra that reminds you that the sharing of the heavy is the holy part— and that this — yes, all of this— is the stuff f your prayers: 

You’ve enough relational trust to unravel together and enough faith in the Father to do so at His feet.
This is no small feat, nor is it failure. 
It’s sacred success. 

There were three of you in that car, not two. 
And your unseen guest had tears in His eyes and a smirk of expectancy as He abided with you. 

Just wait and see.
Keep trusting God and clinging to the One whose grasp is impenetrable. 

May you remember the God who isn’t scared of silence and whose presence is inescapably near (Psalm 139:7–12). May you know the Word of God who continues to create and bring order to chaos now just as He did in the creation (Genesis 1; John 1). He is near. We have no need to fear. He has been walking prayerful parents through the teenaged years for thousands of years. He also lived through them. What a wonder!