I joined the LDS Church as a teenager and was utterly jubilant to find a church home that deepened my Christian faith walk in ways I’d only longed for till then. I come from a long line of deeply religious Southern folk; I was born with Jesus in my blood. But as I grew and tried to make sense of Protestant doctrine, I just couldn’t reconcile the Bigness of God I felt inside me with my (admittedly juvenile) perception of the weak, nonsensical faith structure of my pewmates. So when I encountered the rich depths of Mormon doctrine, it was welcome nourishment to my starving soul. As an instinctive truth-seeker, I felt I had found that pearl of great price I sought. That was decades ago, and I have never had cause to regret my choice, even when the quirks and mistakes of my chosen church upset me. I still experience the doctrines of the Restoration with gut-confirming surety. And the further along the path I get, the richer and wider the vista, the more real and clear the promises.

I have always been grateful that I joined the Church early enough in life to allow me to go to BYU, marry in the temple and raise my children in the Church. I cannot tell you how deeply pleased I was to be able to teach my children not only to look to Jesus (many do that) but to be able to give them many more pieces of the Divine Puzzle, to explain the Plan in much richer detail and confidence. It never once occurred to me that they might not recognize the gospel and the Church (which I always understood as separate things, both “true”) as a pearl worth giving all you had to obtain. I never imagined that someone might not want it. My innate desire for truth, my love for Jesus and my gratitude for the Church were not hard-won; they were so obvious to me that I could not imagine a different perspective.

Well, guess what? It is not obvious nor innate for everyone. Not even your own children. It was obvious to them (to everyone) that my desire for truth and my love for Jesus were absolutely real . . . for me. My gratitude for the Church was obvious, too, as we celebrated my “second birthday” on every baptism anniversary and attended Church every week, at my insistence. I was never a hardliner, never big on the cultural rules, and vocal about my dismay at certain Church actions or puzzlement/anger at issues like gender inequality in the Church. I thought I was modeling how to be a faithful, questioning Latter-Day Saint.

I have six children, most of them grown and gone. So my perspective has inevitably altered and it hasn’t been an easy or happy transition. I’m still wandering in the fog about the whole issue of children who “stray”. I’m not even sure what that means. Stray from what? The Church? God? The family? The path? Whose path? Each of my children has explored the gospel with widely varying degrees of interest and aptitude. Some are simply more spiritual by nature than others. The more intellectually gifted ones seemed to have the most trouble, especially as they encountered troubling historical facts or hard doctrines. Some things about Church culture were ever annoying, and some attitudes of some saints actually did significant damage to some of my children. But even the one who was loved through a particularly rocky adolescence by a particularly fabulous ward family has now walked away.

Three of my children went on full-term missions. Two of the three married ones married in the temple. Four of them went to BYU. So they did try. They wanted to believe. Some still do. But two of those returned missionaries/BYU graduates/sons are completely unchurched. Their hearts are hard toward the Church. They will not allow their children to go to church. The married daughter and mother of three, who is a star member of her ward, told me at the family reunion last year that she is done with the Church, “culturally and doctrinally”. She still participates for her family’s sake. But she’s lost the light of testimony. One single adult returned missionary/daughter is an active saint and seems happy about it. Another single adult daughter, after stomping out of the house and the church at 18, has recently found that God isn’t so bad after all. She attends a non-denominational Christian church and appears to be finding a comfortable spiritual path. The last daughter is still a teenager, with both a heart for God and for trouble, so we’ll see how that turns out.

That’s a funny phrase — turns out. Like our kids are tortillas or omelets that we hope “turn out” all right. But what does that mean? What does that look like? Active participation in the LDS Church? Temple marriage? Staying married? Staying out of prison? Making lots of money? Making lots of grandkids?

I have ten grandchildren and every one of them has a set of good parents, for which I am daily grateful. My grown kids all support themselves and their families, take care of their obligations and each other, and have kind hearts. Some go to church – LDS or otherwise – and some don’t. The cousins are growing up together, in happy homes and prosperous circumstances. I am glad and grateful for all of this. But . . .

Do I even deserve a but? That is the question. I am a staunch proponent of personal agency; the whole multiverse is built on this principle. But . . . I believe Deepak Chopra when he says, “Every spiritual path is the right path.” But . . . My children are all strong, contributing, good people. But . . .

But it breaks my heart when I can’t talk to my son about deep gospel topics, like we used to do. My heart shatters when his kids tell me they don’t believe in God. My heart falls when I realize my granddaughters don’t know who Jesus is. My heart is grieved when only one of my grown children can come to the temple with me, especially as I remember that holy night when I stood at the temple veil, my son on my right side, my daughter on my left and we all entered His presence together. My heart hurts when that same daughter now forbids me to ask about her faith. Mostly, my heart is completely crushed to see some of my children reject the God I love with all my heart, the God I give my life to, the God I introduced them to with such hope and faith. I feel like I have failed God.

I know I’m not alone in this parental grief. I know my feelings of failure are not even relevant and cannot be indulged. I know I did my best. I know my children’s choices are theirs, not mine, to answer for. I know their goodness. I know the journey’s not over and that God is not done with them (or me) yet. I know they are loved by their Heavenly Parents beyond measure, beyond my parental love for them, beyond anything that appears to be in the way. I know Love always wins.

But . . .

How do you deal with kids who “stray”?