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Good morning.  It doesn’t seem that long ago that I, in common with many other parents, was experiencing ‘empty nest syndrome’ as our teenage children left home for university.  But now we’re looking at the ‘boomerang generation’. The shortage of affordable housing to buy and the high cost of renting means that lots of those young adults, who would otherwise be setting up their own homes, are returning to live at home with mum and dad.

In my family, we’re experiencing both at the same time - the perils of being the parents of twins! One son has left university and is back with us while he embarks on his first job. And the other one’s off to do further study in the United States.

So I’ll soon have a half-empty nest– but these two are now ‘fully fledged’, young adults each taking their place in the world in their different ways. Parents set out to rear their children to be independent, hoping that in the process we’ll have passed on some wisdom, and enabled them to lead good and fruitful lives.

And that’s what lies at the heart of humanity’s relationship with God as the Christian faith understands it. God loves each one of us as a parent loves a child. God’s commitment to us is unconditional - he just wants what’s best for each one of us. And to make that possible, God gives us guidance, and the freedom to do with it as we choose.

The granting of freedom isn’t an easy option - there’s always an element of risk, and for a parent maybe also an element of loss. But it’s the only way to see our children ‘fully fledged’, and that’s our mature decision as much as theirs.