How to Show Grace to Parents Who Come to Different Conclusions

School is starting back up again and…

Your next door neighbor has a different opinion about masks.

Your best friend has a different opinion about vaccines.

Your school’s COVID protocols aren’t how you would have written them.

Anxiety, anger, and frustration fill your heart, and your brain won’t stop spinning, as you try to understand how you’ve come to such different conclusions from the people around you.

When we are so sure of our convictions and opinions. When we are so convinced that we are in the right. How do we hold grace for our fellow parents who have come to such different conclusions?

We Choose to Believe the Best

It might make us feel good in the moment when we attack other parents on social media. But name calling, sarcastic comments, arguments within Facebook groups, or using shame tactics, are not going to change anyone’s mind about anything.

(You know all that. Forgive me for sounding like your bossy big sister.)

Love, empathy, compassionate listening, and patience, on the other hand – can have incredible healing effects on the wounds left by the past 18 months of fighting over COVID protocols.

What if we choose to believe that those around us are also thinking critically about the information they are given?

What if we choose to believe that those around us are weighing all the options and trying to do what is best for their families?

What if we choose to believe that those around us love their kids as fiercely as we love ours?

What if we choose to believe that those around us are making choices based on personal information that we aren’t privy to?

What if we choose to pray for our fellow parents instead of attack them or shame them into agreeing with us?

We Pray for Our Fellow Parents

When we pray for someone we often jump to asking God to do something in the other person’s life.

Change their circumstances. Change their perspective. Change their heart.

But God has a peculiar way of turning the tables on us. As we ask him to change the other person – often he begins by changing us.

He starts to show us where we need to confess our own sins. He humbles our hearts. He gives us a different perspective. He moves our attention toward his character and his promises. He gives our heart new desires, and our heads new thoughts.

The more we pray for those who think about COVID differently than we do – the more we will see God’s deep love for those parents and the more compassion we will have toward their perspective.

We Engage in Productive Ways

May I make a suggestion friend? If you are struggling with anger toward parents who are handling back-to-school and COVID differently than you – you may want to consider stepping off of social media for a few weeks.

As parents send their kids back to school you’re going to see a lot of pictures of kids in and out of masks. You’re going to see parents bragging about vaccinating and not vaccinating. You’re going to see praise and condemnation from neighbors regarding your child’s school. You’re going to see homeschool moms, public school moms, and private school moms all shouting from the rooftops why their choice is best.

And none of us will be better off if we try to argue or express conflicting opinions with a hashtag or a angry comment (sorry, big sister interjected again).

Instead, I encourage all of us to have in person conversations with our friends and neighbors. Ask them how they feel about school starting up. Ask how their summer was. Ask how they are feeling about COVID.

And then listen. Don’t prepare our responses. But listen to what they are saying. Ask questions about why they feel the way they do. Show compassion toward them as they share the conclusions they’ve come to. They will probably ask us the same questions in return. So we should be ready to respond with a gracious and peaceful answer. Be honest about how we came to our conclusions. Share the resources we’ve used to educate ourselves. Allow for nuance and vulnerability in our answers.

We Remember Who Really Protects Our Children

When you have a child with medical needs, it can be hard to remember that not everyone does. Our reality is not everyone’s reality. Just like we might not make decisions with their kids in mind – we can’t always expect them to make decisions with our kids in mind. We are all doing the best we can. We are all loving our kids and our families with our whole selves.

Do the decisions of other parents cause you to fear for your child’s safety and health?

It is good and healthy for us to want to protect our children! God made us to be our child’s momma. Of course we want to fight for her well being.

It is also important for us to assess our fears and be honest about where we are putting our hope. Are we inadvertently placing the weight of our child’s protection on the shoulders of someone other than his maker, redeemer, savior and king?

Are we putting that weight on our neighbor? On ourselves?

It’s so hard momma. I know. I can’t tell you how many times since our daughter’s cancer diagnosis that I wanted to spread wings and huddle my chicks together and never let them out of my sight.

But there is incredible freedom in remembering that God himself knows how many hairs are on their heads.

God himself knows when they sit and when they rise.

He knows their thoughts from afar.

There is no where they can go that God is not with them.

I can only protect them from so much. And I can’t expect my neighbor or friend or fellow room-mom to protect my child they way Jesus does.

In the end we have to come to terms with the fact that bad things happen this side of heaven. Not a day arrives that has been promised to us. Each time we open our eyes in the morning is a gift. We make the best choices we can. We put our kids in seat belts. We take them to their doctor appointments. We brush their teeth and feed them vegetables.

But even doing all the “right things” our child still got cancer. And people will have heart attacks, and car crashes, and freak accidents…

We can choose to walk through our days angry and critical of everyone who is handling COVID differently than us, or we can pray for them and hold them in grace, and collectively ask the Lord to protect our families and our kids and our schools this year.

Will you join me in this endeavor? Will you pray alongside me for parents who think differently than us? Will you choose to hold out grace to the parent next to you? Will you link arms with the mom next door and collectively ask the Lord to end COVID?

May the Lord encourage your weary heart with the hope of Jesus. Go in his peace today friends.