When Love Feeds and When Love Lets Go: A Hard Conversation About Boundaries and Compassion

jbhoward429
Sep 8
7 min read

There’s a moment many of us dread - when the child we raised, the one we sang lullabies over and prayed fiercely for, hits rock bottom.

He’s hungry. Not figuratively. Physically hungry. And you’re faced with the kind of decision that splits your heart in two.

Do I feed him?

Do I let him feel the full weight of the consequences?

A dear friend recently told me about such a moment. Her friend’s son, battling sin, untreated mental illness and possibly addiction, had been cut off by his parents. The father stood firm, quoting 2 Thessalonians 3:10—“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” A painful but firm boundary.

But then... hunger.

Real, gnawing hunger.

The mother wanted to send food. The dad would not agree and mom rightfully respected his wishes. Her friend, sensing the Spirit’s nudge, stepped in with a Walmart grocery delivery and another Scripture: “I was hungry and you gave me food…” (Matthew 25:35). Not to undermine the parent’s authority but to show God’s love and compassion.

Two verses. Two very different actions.Both from the Word of God.

So who was right?

I believe... both were.

Because boundaries are biblical. And so is compassion.But context, calling, and relationship matter deeply.

The Difference Between a Parent’s Role and a Stranger’s Response

A parent’s love carries weight. It’s intertwined with years of memories, heartbreak, and hope. When a parent gives, it can unintentionally communicate rescue or reversal. It can blur the boundary lines that recovery often demands. Sometimes, when a mom feeds her addicted adult child, it isn’t love—it’s fear wearing a holy mask. A fear that says, “If I don’t save them, who will?”

But you are not their Savior.

The role of a parent is sacred—and unique. At birth we are completely dependent on our parents and parents are completely responsible for the welfare of the baby. After a while the child learns to walk and every step they take, every milestone they hit, breaks the dependence on their parents a little bit at a time. It is an inevitable unfolding that takes place over a couple of decades. A mother and child’s relationship as they grow is essentially a back-and-forth negotiation for independence and autonomy. If done well, this process leads to a happy healthy adult who is ready to launch into their own adult lives.

There comes a time when letting go is not abandonment, but obedience. Clinging to a codependent relationship with an adult child is not love or compassion. It is holding them back from becoming the man or woman God created them to be. There’s a surrender that only a mother can know. One that says, “God, I trust You more than I trust myself to fix this.”

The role of a Christian friend or stranger is different.

They aren’t entangled in the same patterns of codependency. Their act of compassion can meet an immediate need without unravelling years of boundary-setting. The Good Samaritan didn’t know the man on the road. He didn’t carry a mother’s ache or a father’s past regrets. He simply saw suffering and responded.

The stranger, the friend, the outsider - they carry a different mantle. One that can respond to hunger without the same entanglement of enabling or rescuing. The stranger does not owe anything to our addicted child and is more able to give without the expectation of there being more to come. The comfort of depending on someone else for your needs to be met (especially without something expected in return) comes much easier with parents than with strangers.

The connection to the love and mercy of Christ is also much clearer in a stranger or friend relationship. When a parent gives to their adult child, honoring God may be a part of the equation, but it is tangled with the parents own love for and obligation to the child. But what motivation does a stranger have to give besides mercy, compassion, and in the case of a Christian, the love of Christ?

Spirit-led Love or Soul-crushing Fear

Parents must learn to let go in love. Friends must discern when to lean in with mercy.

And all of us must ask:“Am I acting from Spirit-led love… or soul-crushing fear?”

Sometimes the most faithful thing a parent can do is not rescue.

Sometimes the most faithful thing a friend can do is respond in mercy.

This isn’t a one-size-fits-all. It’s a soul-searching, Spirit-led walk in the tension of grace and truth.

Now this would have been manipulative codependency if the mom had confided in the friend and asked her to send the delivery to get around her husband or even confided in the friend hoping that she would but that was not the case here. Mom was rightly leaning on her support team in a difficult moment of surrender.

It would have also been an unhealthy dynamic if the friend had just taken it upon herself to step in and do as she pleased. That also was not the case. She talked to mom, laid out what she felt God was leading her to do and why she felt that way and got mom and dad’s blessing.

And we need to be clear that the Holy Spirit will never lead us to sin – to lie, to deceive, to manipulate, to steal, etc. If we are going to be led by the Holy Spirit, we must know the character of God because He will never contradict Himself. If we know that something is sin, the answer is always no. But there is a lot of gray area in parenting an addict. The line between enabling and having compassion can be merky and that is where we must lean into the Holy Spirit.

My Personal Experience

If you’ve been reading a while, you know that the turning point in my relationship with my addicted daughter came on a night that she passed out in a convenience store in a bad area of town. She was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and I got one of those calls we all dread. I had no idea what was going on, if she was okay, or what I would be facing when I got there but I threw some shoes on and ran.

It was, in fact, malnutrition from doing too much meth and not eating or drinking enough food and water. I took her that night and fed her at waffle house before I had to drop her off at the abandoned house with no utilities she was squatting in. The next day I went back with shelf-stable groceries and things that could be heated over a fire and a list of food banks that were within walking distance of where they were staying.

To this day, I don’t feel this was enabling. I didn’t take on the long-term mantle of feeding them (her and her then-boyfriend) but gave them enough to get by for a few days and the resources to take care of it on their own after that.

I would not have faulted the parents if they had been in agreement and sent their son some food, but they were not in agreement. The boundaries set were recent, no changes had been made and dad did not feel it was the right time to make an exception and that is a perfectly respectable position.

Our recovery from codependency with our adult children unfolds one situation at a time. There is a fine line between enabling and compassion, between firm healthy boundaries and complacency. Recovering from codependency requires us to find the line in each situation and in our early recovery, it feels like it is constantly moving. It is our responsibly to stay prayed up, spirit-led and do our very best to be on the right side of that line. The Biblical boundaries we set are guidelines, like a default setting to how we will handle issues that arise. They should be based on Biblical principles and prayed over at length but like any good default, we must allow that default to be overridden by the Holy Spirit, if He chooses to do so.

After fully surrendering my addicted daughter to God, I continued to hold firm in the boundaries I had set but made some rare exceptions when the spirit led me to. She and her then-boyfriend, now-husband have both said that those rare exceptions showed them that I still loved her (and him by extension). It helped give them the motivation to get clean and empowered them to reach out to me when they were ready to get help.

So here’s the real question we must ask, again and again:

Am I feeding from fear or from faith? Am I withholding out of wisdom or out of control?

Only the Holy Spirit can lead you in that.But you don’t have to walk that path alone.

In fact, I don’t recommend that you do walk it alone.

You need an accountability team to help you with wisdom and discernment.

If you’re a mom standing in this place today - aching, unsure, torn - know this:

You are not alone.

You are not their Savior.

And you are still a Hope Holder.

And your sister Hope Holders are right here with you on this path.

Let go… without giving up.

Feed when He says feed.