To my children:
One of the things you’ll need to learn before you fly away from the nest is how to internalize your ideals. From the time you were little, your parents have been hard at work transferring their ideals to you, hoping that you would see and understand that making Jesus your center is the only way to have the abundant life that he wants you to have. When you are living at home and Mom and Dad are in charge of the details of your life, it is fairly easy to live the ideal of Christ. You may even think that Christ really is your ideal. 
What happens though, is that as your parents’ child, you may simply be wearing your parents’ ideals, like a comfy sweater or a fuzzy blanket. Sweaters and blankets make you feel secure and warm when your environment is not as welcoming as it should be. Your favorite blanky can mean the difference between a sleepless night or sweet dreams. Even so, instead of just wearing your parents’ ideals, you will have to begin making your own ideals that become part of who you are, instead of something that you put on and take off.
A true ideal is like a guiding star in the night sky. When the three wise men were looking for Jesus, they found him by following the light of the star. Just like them, you are under no illusions that you will ever making a landing on this faraway star - no, it is too distant to reach in a mere mortal’s lifetime. Instead, you will use it to determine the course of your life as you judge every choice by the light of this perfect ideal. Every step moves you closer to the star and closer to becoming the person you want to be.
The problem with the fuzzy sweater approach to ideals is that when you grow up and start directing your own life, when you officially become an adult, you will find that those dark, starless nights don’t scare you so much any more. In fact, you find them rather intriguing. Rather beguiling. Worth a look around. So you cast off the restrictions of the blanky and go exploring. The sweater feels a little tight so you fold it up and lay it on the shelf. It will be here when I come back for it, you tell yourself as you walk away into the night.
You enjoy the cool of the darkness; you find excitement and adventure on every turn. You travel farther and farther away from the shelf. Things are going well. What was I thinking, hiding under that blanket for so long? This is where life really happens. But then something changes. You realize that out here, in the cold and the dark, you’re alone. You begin to feel the palpable darkness and you long for a light. Back at home you were content with the blankie, but out here, you really, really need a light. And there is none to be found, not one star can you see, not one guiding beam to keep you from stepping off the edge of the cliff or falling into the raging whitewater and being dashed on the rocks.
You didn’t find your star before you headed out into the unknown. So you grope around in the darkness, looking for something to keep you warm. Anything. Anything at all will do. But the sweater and the blanket you once found so secure and comforting and then so restrictive, while they’re still there on the shelf of your beliefs, are different now… no, actually it’s you that has changed. You thought you could come back and get them when and if you needed to, but those ideals you clung to so fervently as a child just do not fit anymore. And you don’t have your own guiding star to lead you. So you turn back to the dark and find someone else’s sweater to put on, to take off, and you wander.
Dear children, let’s make a point of helping you find your star, your “guiding light,” your God-beam, before you launch out into the unknown. Let’s be aware that the fuzzy sweater is not adequate out there. Only the fire light of your own ideal will be sufficient to keep you in this life. Let’s find it before you go.
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