The question I still ask myself is: when spiritual truth is my life and breath, how could I have failed to transfer to my child at least a solid faith in God and Christ and a belief in prayer? I go back to my familiar lament: "I can't find any way to reach him, I can't get through to him, I don't know how to help him. I don't know what he needs, I don't understand his thinking or his choices. How can I be okay with him not to believing the things that mean the most to me? What can I do? How can I live with this situation?"

When I take a deep breath and pause, then really pray and listen for the Spirit, these words come clearly to my mind: "Does the Lord know how to reach him, how to get through to him, how to help him? Does Jesus know what he needs and how to give it to him?"

I feel profound relief when I cling to the obvious "yes" answer. I can easily get so immersed in my sad feelings that I forget to look up. When I remember, the Savior is always there with his arms stretched out to me AND to my son. Yet I've sometimes gotten so tied up in sadness over the problem that I didn't notice those outstretched arms. Whenever I notice, whenever I listen, the Savior says to me, "Darla, you can't save your son, but I can. You don't know how to help him, but I do. You don't fully understand him, but I do. I know exactly what he needs, and am in process of bringing it into his life right now."

Relinquishing My Son to the Savior's Tender Care

Only the Savior and Heavenly Father can do the work of salvation. There may be tiny parts that I will be blessed to share, but it is Their work and glory to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man. I really do believe all that, but the hardest thing to submit to is the Lord's timetable. I want Him to save my son RIGHT NOW! I want Him to see my son as another Saul, visit him on his road to Damascus, bring about instant conversion so he can get on with becoming a mighty warrior in the cause of truth. I don't want to wait and pray and be patient and watch him wander in mists of darkness at noonday. I want the Lord to move quickly and not wait. But my thoughts are not His thoughts and my ways are not His ways. In His ultimate wisdom, there is only one way He can proceed. Above all else He honors agency. He will place in my son's path opportunities to learn and grow--then let him choose when to respond. In the meantime, I can pray for my son each day, and ask to know the best ways I can give him gifts of love. Sometimes I feel like a powerless bystander, but I can give him drink when he is thirsty, offer consolation when he is sad, a meal when he is hungry, a listening ear.

 For five years this son wouldn't accept anything from anyone in the family; I knew the frustration and grief of having deep desires to give and help, yet have my gifts rejected. When my son finally opened his life just a crack and began letting us treat him like a family member again, what a great, great privilege it was to do so.  I now understand on so much deeper level the Lord's joy in blessing us, the happiness He must feel when we accept His gifts, freely partake of His living waters. What unspeakable joy I felt when my son finally communicated with me. How I love to feed him when he will eat a meal with us, how I love to give him gifts that he now accepts with gratitude. How I love it when he chooses to join in a family gathering. I crave his presence; with my whole heart I want him to be with us, be one with us.

The Lord Yearns to Communicate with Us, Bless Us--Yet Honors Agency

I have pondered deeply what it means to the Lord to have his children communicate with Him, how much He yearns to have each of us reach up to Him, notice that He is there, know that He is watching, caring, desiring to bless us. He wants nothing more than to feed us with the bread of life, quench our thirst with living waters. How many times He must stand ready with the answer to some dilemma, only to have us turn away and never ask Him. How often He must sadly look on as we thrash about in spiritual anguish saying, "I don't know how to do this; I can't find a way," when He is standing patiently all the while saying softly, "But I AM THE WAY, the only way."

At one point during my son's absence from the family, desperate to know he was all right, I began making visits to his apartment, taking hot bread, etc. but did not catch him home. Finally, on a bleak November day, I arrived just as he was walking from his car into his house. I ran over, eager to greet him, and reached out to embrace him. He looked at me coldly, said, "You'd better leave," and shut the door in my face! I can't even write about this without reliving the shock and utter amazement I experienced. I knocked and knocked on his door, calling his name, pleading with him to talk to me, but he wouldn't respond. I sat on his cold cement porch for a long time, praying to know what to do. His whole countenance confirmed my worst fears; he was in trouble and needed help, yet wouldn't even talk to me, his mother, who would have done anything in all the world to help him. I was numb, incredulous, hurting like I had never hurt before. How could I have imagined that a dearly loved child would ever refuse to open the door to me? Refuse my loving offer of help?

The picture of Jesus knocking on a door that has no outside doorknob has come to my mind repeatedly since that day. As a parent there is so much I can learn from the Lord's example. Even though it must grieve His sensitive soul when we refuse to respond to His knock, still He allows us to make our own choices. He respects the right He gave us to choose our own way and suffer through our own mistakes. He stands patiently knocking at the door of our souls every day; yet no matter how loud the ruckus may become inside the house of our souls, no matter how much He may yearn to crash the door and run inside and clean up the messes and solve the problems, He cannot and will not break His own laws. He said, "Come unto me," and renews that invitation daily. But He will not coerce or force us to open the door of our hearts and let Him in. Only if we do so by our own free will and choice will He enter and begin His transforming miracles.

Patience for Promises to Be Fulfilled

Until my son gets to a place in his life where he answers the door and invites the Savior in, He waits patiently, and so must I. My son did call--after just a few weeks--apologize for his behavior, and invite me back into his life. He accepted my offer of help, and even moved back in with the family for a time. He is now doing well and is trusted and respected in his own circle. I must hang onto the hope that one day he will respond to the Savior's knock on the door of his heart, and invite Him back.In the meantime, the scriptures are replete with verses that comfort me, such as: "Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me: And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost" (D&C 50:41-42). I like to put my child's name in place of "Zion" in the following scripture: "Let your heart be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God" (D&C 101:16).

I know that eventually "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess" (D&C 88:104). If I find myself thinking of my son wandering life's paths without the gospel to guide him, refusing to answer the Savior's patient knocking,  I focus my mind's eye instead on a picture of my son reverently kneeling before the Savior, confessing His name, joyously accepting in the end what had been there for him all along.

Darla Isackson with one of her grandchildren,

Darla Isackson (formerly Darla Hanks) has loved writing and speaking since she was a child. Her intense commitment to the world of words comes from a belief that faith is sharable and that faith-filled words can lift and build.

Darla graduated from Utah State University and served a mission to Southern California. While home raising her five sons, she published greeting card verses, articles for church and family magazines, the book To Parents With Love, and the newspaper column Parent Patter. Later she co-founded Latter-day Woman magazine, where she was Managing Editor for two years and a consistent contributor of articles and poetry.

Darla has been on the Continuing Education speaker's circuit for BYU and she produced six inspirational talks with Covenant Communications. In 1987 she pioneered the book division for Covenant Communications and was their Managing Editor for five years. She later served as Managing Editor for Aspen Books. In 1996, Aspen published a mother's day booklet called To Be a Mother, the Agonies and the Ecstacies, which Darla and Emma Lou Thayne teamed up to write.

Darla has edited well over two hundred books in her career - shepherding them from manuscript to bookstore shelves. She has presented at writer's workshops in three states.

The last several years she has free-lanced at home, editing, co-authoring, and ghost-writing several books while caring for her elderly mother until she passed away. She now has three grandsons who live nearby and bring her great joy. They increase her determination never to work full-time again. She has treasured the peacefulness of being home again, having time to write and being more available to those she loves.