Tomorrow I will spend the day shopping with my three almost grown kids. I will drop the two oldest at the airport into the bowels of flying alone. I will stay calm and grown up about it, I shall.
How does it happen? You give your body to be used in every way in birthing, breastfeeding, and constant feeding of littles and changing of their diapers. That seems to last an eternity. In the midst of those years you wonder if it will ever end, if you will ever again be free of arms and hands pummeling you and touching you. You crawl into bed those years with someones dried tears on your cheek and the smell of grass and bugs from their little hands as they kissed you goodnight.
And then you ramble through the years of skinned knees, dentists visits, and school work. Those years feel like two months, they go so quickly. They are packed with conversations about manners, etiquette, boy crushes, girl crushes, puppies and bikes. They are a pain, they are a blast. I am still in those years, thank God! But I see a shift.
I am told I need to learn to let go. Like fun, I say. I will never let go of my children. I can put them on an airplane out of my sight without letting go. I am bound to them for all eternity through flesh and blood and heart and soul. But I can do it calmly because they are not mine alone.
They are God's children. We have asked for God's protection, we have bathed them in prayer. We are celebrating that they can go and be of use to God's kingdom somewhere else. This is why we have children. To continue spreading God and His light on our world. We live and move and have our being to do a job of work. And God especially uses children. How can I not do this calmly with great confidence?
How does it happen? You give your body to be used in every way in birthing, breastfeeding, and constant feeding of littles and changing of their diapers. That seems to last an eternity. In the midst of those years you wonder if it will ever end, if you will ever again be free of arms and hands pummeling you and touching you. You crawl into bed those years with someones dried tears on your cheek and the smell of grass and bugs from their little hands as they kissed you goodnight.
And then you ramble through the years of skinned knees, dentists visits, and school work. Those years feel like two months, they go so quickly. They are packed with conversations about manners, etiquette, boy crushes, girl crushes, puppies and bikes. They are a pain, they are a blast. I am still in those years, thank God! But I see a shift.
I am told I need to learn to let go. Like fun, I say. I will never let go of my children. I can put them on an airplane out of my sight without letting go. I am bound to them for all eternity through flesh and blood and heart and soul. But I can do it calmly because they are not mine alone.
They are God's children. We have asked for God's protection, we have bathed them in prayer. We are celebrating that they can go and be of use to God's kingdom somewhere else. This is why we have children. To continue spreading God and His light on our world. We live and move and have our being to do a job of work. And God especially uses children. How can I not do this calmly with great confidence?
Have so much fun Laife and Toria! Remember all our train trips to Idaho and our trip to Mexico? And where all did we travel? We were only 15 and 16 or younger when we started flying and train tripping hither and yon. Our friends and big brother's and their wives were always so kind to us even when we were extremely obnoxious. I'm looking forward to this stage for my kids. So far it's been fun watching them get smarter and more independent. It'll be so wonderful, to finally step back and know my job is done. Haaaahahhhaaaaaa!
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