Letting Go....

As I sit here eating Turtles and drinking coffee alone at my computer with TV in the far distance and my mind racing, I am reveling in the joy of today and pondering what it is like to LET GO!  Soon we will come together with dear friends to celebrate.....

I have soooo much I would like to share!  Wisdom I have acquired from others and  wisdom from my own life journey regarding motherhood.  I have many many many questions I continue to seek answers to regarding raising children and surviving that pivotal moment when your child becomes an adult.  But for now I will share regarding the past 18 years.

Grade 7

Today my firstborn child turned 18.  For him it is the day that defines his transition from teen to adult.  I find it interesting that it is just a day,  a small moment in time comparatively speaking.  12:01am today to be exact that he decided he was an adult. 

For me it has been a journey of 18 years that I have embarked on trying my best to teach him life lessons.  Little does he know that this day does not magically make him ready to take on all that adulthood brings.  This only gives him more freedom to make choices that will even more fiercely mold and shape him in to who he is designed to be.  I however will let him revel in today making adult choices to allow him to feel adult all the while resting in the comfort of knowing that he will still ask me to go out,  ask me for money and ask me to drive him somewhere.....if only for a while longer I will hold on.

For me the last 18 years have been most amazing. For me I was and still  am embarking on my journey to become who I am designed to be.  It has been challenging and rewarding to understand what it means to nurture a child's soul as I was nurturing my own and that of our other family members.  It has been amazing to watch how God has been at work in his life as well as mine and those around us.  It has been freeing to learn what it means to experience hurt, pain, pleasure, desire and joy while making sense of the fact that although he was given to me only for a while I would some day let him go.

I spent most of these years trying so desperately to protect him and give him a happy comfortable life.  Unfortunately for him he did not come with a manual therefore we were embarking on trial by error with a loaded suitcase.  It took me 16 3/4 years to begin to understand the letting go process begins when they become a mobile baby and begin exploring their world and making choices regarding their own will.  I was only 15 3/4 years behind on that memo!

Paul Brandt's song "Learning How to Let It Go" became my cry to God as I realized I needed to let him become his own person and I could not protect him from the evils of the world nor the pain the evils would bring.

So today as he has set off in a car on slick roads to go skiing on a hill and knowing that he won't be wearing a helmet I delight in the fact that all in all against the critics notion I have raised an amazing child who is fun, charismatic, compassionate and wise beyond his years.  He will fulfill the plans God has for him and he will fill them boldly and passionately bringing an absolute love for life and love for people as he journeys forward through the time we call life.

We do not know what lies ahead but we can rest in the promises of the Lord knowing that if we raise a child up in the way he should go he will not part from it and that God has plans to prosper us not to harm us plans of good not evil to give you a future and hope.  You see God knew us before we were in the womb.  We are His workmanship created for good works which God prepared before hand that we should walk in them.

And this is what I will rest in as I let go of my first born child and release him completely in faith to journey on his own and become who he was designed to be.