God Can Free You from Fear-Based Parenting

I have been a mom for almost 26 years. My oldest is twenty-five years old and my youngest is almost ten. For most of my adult life, I was bound by fear and anxiety. I feel bad for my oldest because he lived a very strict life and didn’t get to do anything at all if I wasn’t right there with him. He never got to go anywhere with friends and he definitely didn’t stay the night anywhere. I barely let him stay with his own grandparents. He never got to go on a youth trip. I wouldn’t let him ride in the car with other people. I was even super nervous when he would go places with his own dad. I feel like I was always right on top of him, but in my eyes, I was doing it out of love because I didn’t want anything to happen to him. The truth is, all my actions were fear based, and those fears caused my son to miss out on some great opportunities. 

Praise God, He freed me from all of those fears, but unfortunately it was a little too late for my oldest. 

Do you know that the devil watches you to see where he can gain a foothold? I Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” You don’t get a free pass because you’re a Christian. In fact, you have a bigger target on your back. The devil isn’t as concerned about those who haven’t surrendered their lives to the Lord. They often make enough mess of their own lives that the devil doesn’t even have to step in. He is a watchful adversary, waiting to find you in moments of weakness so he can target your mind.  

When God frees you from a thing, Satan doesn’t just sit down and cry about it. He watches you, and waits to catch you in his trap. He’ll either catch you two ways. 

Number one: When you’re tired.  

Tired of waiting on answers from God. You know, that’s when you try to take matters into your own hands. Tell me how that’s working out for you.  

Or maybe you’re just plain exhausted. You’re trying to raise your children on your own with little or no support from family and friends, while providing a roof over their heads, trying to keep up with housework, maybe you’re chasing a toddler around all day and changing diapers nonstop. You feel like you’re just surviving. For some of you, it may take just one little thing to push you over the edge. Maybe your little one spills some milk all over the counter and you just snap. This is what happens when you are utterly exhausted and this is the perfect time for the enemy to swoop in and start speaking his lies. The devil doesn’t even have to know you, to be able to observe when you’re an easy target. Your own children learn at a very young age when it’s the right time to ask for something. They know you’re more likely to say yes to certain things when you’re extremely tired. If a two-year-old can figure it out, the devil certainly can just by watching you. He knows when you’re more likely to cave.  

Another way he’ll catch you is when everything is going great in your life. Sound crazy? Well, when life seems wonderful, that’s when you tend to slip up on your time you spend with the Lord. And even if that’s not the case, pride can sneak in. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:18 that pride comes before a fall. Sometimes we are so confident in our freedom in Christ that we are taken by complete surprise when fear overtakes us again. Or for some of us, it’s when anger creeps in, or despair just seems to hit out of nowhere.  

This past year, the devil tried to come at me with his old tactics when my son started fundraising for the annual trip to Chattanooga for the Wild One’s conference. I was seriously second guessing allowing my son to go, even though this is the same conference where my son was filled with the Holy Spirit just a couple years before. I knew in my heart that it was going to be good for him, but the devil filled my mind with a bunch of things that could possibly go wrong.  

Thankfully, the Lord put a word right in front of my face one day and it made me wake up and realize I was being motivated by fear again. It was something like, “Don’t keep your kids from their testimony.” Wow! It literally changed everything for me again.  

Instead of continuing to listen to all the negative “what-ifs”, like 

What if they’re in an accident? 

What if he gets bullied or feels left out? 

Or worse... 

What if someone harms my son in unthinkable ways?

My thinking shifted to a different kind of what-ifs, praise God! 

Like... 

What if he makes new friends that last a lifetime? 

What if he’s the one comforting someone who feels left out? 

Or even better... 

What if this trip marks him in a way that we would never see if he didn’t get to go? What if it sparks a fire in him that is the beginning of revival among the youth and in our nation?  

You know what happened? My son went on that trip and came back changed! He was the first kid up on stage at our church on Sunday morning to give his testimony. And it wasn’t just a conference high, my son has been noticeably different. We talk about God more. He seems less annoyed by me, and he has also started working out again because he said that God wants us to take care of our temple. I see now why Satan planted seeds of fear about the trip.  

Picture of my son sharing his testimony.

When you start getting fearful thoughts, rebuke it as fast as you can, because I can guarantee that Satan is trying to stop something beautiful from happening. 

What is it that you struggle with?  

I know for many, especially right now, you might be fearful of sickness because there’s been so much going around. I feel you. I used to have extreme fear of my children getting sick. Even before Covid, I would skip church ALL winter long because I was terrified of them getting the flu. I would even take my own portable highchair to restaurants and I carried a baggie of Lysol wipes with me so I could wipe down the tables before we sat down to eat. Before Covid, everyone looked at me like I was an alien.

I wonder how many people relate to the old me. If you have the big sign on your baby’s car seat or stroller that says, “Please don’t touch”, then I assure you, you relate. They didn’t have those signs when my boys were babies, so I just made sure to tell everyone to wash their hands before they touched my baby. But I still worried my baby was being contaminated and I was certain he would contract some crazy virus that would spread through all six of us.

Fear motivates us to put up walls, and to always be on guard. 

I also kept my boys home a lot because I was afraid of them getting kidnapped or being involved in an act of terrorism when we were out in public. Secretly, part of the reason I was thrilled to be homeschooling, was because I was more afraid of gun violence in the schools, than I was of something happening in my own home. We also didn’t take great vacations because I was afraid to fly.  

Sadly, I could go on and on about all of the ways I was fearful in my parenting, but I don’t want that to be the focus point. I also know that if you’re already full of anxiety, you might hear other things and think, “Well I never thought of that!”, and then you have something else to worry about. I know, because that used to be me. I got more and more fearful as I got older because I watched too much news and I heard too many stories. You can’t fear what you don’t know. Well, you can...but that’s called anxiety. Anxiety is future based. You fear something that may or may not even happen. Or you are triggered by something that already happened, and you’re afraid it will happen again.  

I don’t want you to focus on all the things that can go wrong. I want you to see what God did for me and know that He is faithful to do the same for you.  

Whether we like it or not, children learn by falling and getting hurt, and they grow strong immune systems by going through sicknesses. They learn by having opportunities to explore, without us hovering over their every move.  

You know what happened with my oldest son? Because I sheltered him SO much, he was extremely shocked to learn that not everyone has the same beliefs as him. Not everyone is nice. When he got his first job, it was as if I just took a little baby fish and threw him in a tank full of sharks. Some things I have zero regret sheltering him from. There is a need for wisdom and discernment in your decisions. What I do regret is not talking to him more openly about how the rest of the world might be.  

What I want you to think about today, is how can your fears possibly be robbing your children of their testimony? And listen, if you only have young children and you think this doesn’t apply to you, if you can’t break free from fear and anxiety now, it’s only going to get worse as they grow up. 

Don’t allow your fears to rob your children of their testimony!

When those what-ifs start playing in your mind, ask the Holy Spirit to help you rethink the situation. Flip the script on the devil! 

Do like I did with my son’s youth trip. When the what-ifs start, flip it to something positive. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so I think crazy things like, what if my child being sick caused me to miss church, which protected me from being in an accident? Some things we’ll never know for sure, but it is helpful if you can flip the script on the devil. 

Speak out scriptures that minister to your situation. Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life are in the power of our tongues. What are you confessing over yourself and your children? 

If you’re afraid of sickness, speak Psalm 91:10 over your family. I still do this almost every day. And I rebuke specific things that have ran through my bloodline. It stops with me! And it can stop with you! 

I guarantee whatever has you bound, there’s a scripture to counter it with, and you need to start standing on the word every single day. The scripture that changed my life was II Timothy 1:7, because it reminds me that fear is a spirit and I don’t have to accept it. The Lord gave me a sound mind. If He gave me a sound mind, then I walk in peace. Peace and torment cannot coexist. If you’re not walking in total peace, then you are entertaining a spirit of fear.  

Please don’t end up like I was, living life full of regrets because of all the fears that held me back. Catch this!...You can have a season of regret, and put an end to it all today, or you can have a lifetime of regret while also robbing your children of their testimonies. That choice truly is yours. 

Today I ask you to search your heart and ask the Lord if there’s any area where fear has seeped into your life. If you don’t have 100% peace about something, then there is a root of fear. At this moment, I’m not just talking about fear in your parenting. Maybe you've endured really hard, painful things in your life. You might even experience PTSD when you think about it. There is purpose in everything you’ve been through. God wants you healed so you can minister to others. If you can’t believe that, then you’re not healed yet. If you can’t find purpose in your pain, you haven’t healed. Those are harsh words to hear, but I’m speaking from what the Holy Spirit has taught me through my own painful situations. As long as I remained bitter because of the cards I was dealt, then I wasn’t fully healed. And when you’re not fully healed, it’s a lot harder for step into ALL that God has for you.  

I pray that today is the day you find healing from past trauma and that today marks a turning point where you say goodbye to fear forever!

Be blessed,

Amanda Rosen