I’ve been a parent of teenagers for five years now—and I still often find myself caught off guard by how different this stage is from parenting children and preteens. I often feel I’m wandering around without a map—or, perhaps a better way to put it is that I find using my old familiar map (parenting children) is zero help as I journey the landscape of parenting adolescents. So it comes as no surprise that the dek (subtitle) of this week’s featured article deeply resonnates: “The unexpected surrender of parenting adolescents.”

Many of the surprising twists and turns parents of adolescents experience are deeply frustrating, leaving parents feeling helpless, hurt, disappointed, and sometimes angry. And, as is the case with much of life’s pain and turmoil, those moments can also serve as invitations into deeper spiritual practice. The spiritual practice of surrender, also called relinquishment, is about both trust and submission. We see it exemplified in Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus voices his earnest desire while also simultaneously submitting to the Father’s will.

In “My Teenager Made Me Finally Grow Up,” Michelle Van Loon reflects on the spiritual maturation that took place in her life during this stage of parenting. She observes, “[M]my husband and I learned in the trenches of daily life that the kind of control we'd exercised during our kids' childhood years became a hindrance when it came to raising teens. During those challenging adolescent years, I discovered that as relinquished my desire to control, I was becoming an adult.”

How might God be inviting you deeper into surrrender and trust in him as you grapple with the difficulties of parenting? Whether you are parenting teenagers or another age group, each phase has its own challenges that can also serve as spiritual invitations. How is God inviting you to trust him more?