I Second That Emuna

Faith can be an elusive thing. Now you've got it, now you don't. Or you have it for certain things and not for others.

I find that as my children go through life I have to apply emunah (faith) to their circumstances even more than to my own. This is easier said than done. As parents we want our kids to be safe and strong. We want them to be happy and have friends and be well-paid at work. We want everyone to appreciate them and treat them kindly. We want them to fear God and have great marriages. To be blessed with healthy kids, nice apartments, new cars and yearly vacations. In short, every parent deep down, wants their kids' lives to be perfect. I think that's natural.

It has taken me years to apply my own emunah to my adult children and their lives. In the beginning I used to emotionally resist any challenge that came their way. I couldn't stand to see them struggling financially. I couldn't bear it when a son would argue with his wife or if a daughter had a difficult pregnancy. I hated it when they couldn't find work or their children were sick. It was difficult for me to see my kids worried, frustrated or exhausted. In short, I couldn't handle watching God test them. And until I learned to let go, I would try to undo God's testing of them. I laugh about it now but that's what I was doing. It was difficult for me to see my kids worried, frustrated or exhausted. I always felt I should make things easier for them somehow. Make their problems go away.

When my child was an infant and cried out, it was my job to figure out what he needed and then give it to him. If he was hungry, I fed him, if she was wet I would change her, if they were lonely I would hold them.

They didn't know what to do, they didn't know what they needed, they just felt bad and cried out and I came to their rescue. I provided solace and solutions. I felt like God.

I guess that feeling dies hard.

And then something traumatic happened. My son and his wife had a baby who was born without kidneys, their first child. It is a very rare condition and impossible to fix. The baby lived for twenty hours.

During that time my son and his young wife coped so beautifully, so gracefully, with such strength and emunah that I stood back in wonder at the sheer gadlus (greatness) of these two young adults.

Mixed with the sorrow and overwhelming grief, I felt incredible wonder and pride in my children. I could only imagine the joy they gave God by being so accepting of His will and so loving with each other.

I will never forget those months following the tragedy. The whole family worked hard to be positive, to stay hopeful and to trust in Hashem. We all grew in our emunah and my youngest son became a man with another dimension to his personality, a heightened compassion for people that he still has today. He would not be who he is if he had not overcome this challenge.

Today, thank God, he and his wife have three healthy children whom we all cherish. We will never know why the first child was born the way he was. We will never know, in this lifetime, what that baby's soul was sent down to accomplish. Only the Maker of all souls knows. Only the Creator of the Master Plan knows what every soul needs to develop itself and reach its full potential. Only God is in charge.

And that God ain't me.

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Rebbitzen Yehudit Channen began her career as a Crisis Intervention Counselor in Silver Spring, Md. in the seventies. After moving to Israel, she worked as a marital mediator and social skills instructor for kids. Following the death of a son, Rebbitzen Channen became a certified bereavement counselor and worked with young mothers who had suffered loss. Most recently she worked at the Melabev Center for the memory-impaired, as an activity director and group facilitator for families coping with Dementia.  The Rebbitzen has written for numerous magazines and newspapers and recently led an interactive creative writing course called Connective Writing. Yehudit Channen is the wife of Rabbi Don Channen, Rosh Yeshiva of Keter HaTorah.  They are blessed to have nine children and many grandchildren and live in Ramat Beit Shemesh.