Transparent

Transparent

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

James 5:16

In our society the age at which a person is considered an adult differs with each family. Yes, from a legal perspective, eighteen is considered adulthood, but in some families a mother is still providing for all her child’s needs when he or she is twenty-five. In other families, a young person is leading a mostly independent life at the age of fifteen. In Amish society, sixteen is the turning point for Amish youth. At fifteen you are a child; at sixteen you are an adult. It’s then that Amish youth can make many of their own decisions, and some of them choose the way of the world for a time.

Rumspringa, or “running around,” is expected in the Amish culture, but the degree and extent of this behavior vary. In small communities many youth stay closer to the straight and narrow. In large communities, some youth live wild lives. Even among some Amish families, there is no escaping the “wild teen years.” In fact, some of that has been happening for generations.

Many Amish youth grow up assuming their parents wandered in the ways of the world for a time. Yet like most adults, Amish parents often don’t take time to discuss their own choices or the consequences of those choices with their young-adult children. After all, it’s hard confessing one’s own mistakes. But as hard as it may be, transparency is a better way. It’s easy to lecture and scold. Harder to kindle a relationship—a friendship—with a young person and speak from one’s own experience.

“People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy,” we read in Proverbs 28:13. When we confess our sins to our God, we find forgiveness. And when we confess our sins to our children, there is a chance we can protect them from making the same mistakes.

It’s not easy to admit we were wrong, but healing comes—both in our hearts and in our relationships—when we do.

Dear heavenly Father, give me courage to open my heart to those who need to know the truth of my past. And may sharing my mistakes save someone else from making the same ones I did.