Welcome, friend! I’m so glad you’re here!
I want to bottle every moment between now and then. Grab hold of time and will it to slow down. I need to catch my breath. I need to figure out how to carry something that feels like both sadness and joy in equal measure. I don’t know how to hold that. But maybe that’s just it … maybe I can’t hold it. Maybe this has always been about surrender.
Every year, millions of American families send their children off to their freshman year of college. Their pictures dot our social media feeds. Images of excited students holding collegiate pennants, maybe wearing a hat or holding up their school’s hand sign with beaming smiles. Their parents post excited words about futures and hopes and dreams. So why am I struggling so much? Why does this feel more like a loss than a gain? Why are my tears always on edge, threatening to spill over each time I think about August and what it will bring?
Basketball season just started for my oldest, which means this week is the first of the last. As a senior, it’s his last try-out, his last time to anticipate the season ahead, his last opportunity to feel the excitement of a calendar filled with court-side games and competition. If I’m completely honest, I must admit I’ve both looked forward to and dreaded the start of this season. Because as much as I love cheering him on from those side-line bleachers, that final buzzer is going to crush me.
In the past few years, something has started to shift among the younger generations. In my 46 years, I’ve never seen anything like it. Gen Z is hungry and thirsty for the living word of God. They’re desperate for His presence. They want to know Him, closely, intimately, honestly. And they’re not ashamed to proclaim Him in their classrooms, on their campuses or in the public square.
This generation doesn’t care for pretenses, and they’re not interested in a production. They’re tired of being enslaved to anxiety, depression and addiction, and they want to see chains drop off and prisoners set free. They want truth. Raw. Authentically. Honestly.
Light shone down from a cyan sky as we parked the car in the college admissions lot. It was a beautiful day. Seventy degrees. Sunny. February in Texas is like that. It can be the best of times, and it can be the worst of times. Thankfully, it was the former.
Ochre rays warmed our skin as we walked toward the building. He was all smiles. Confident yet humble. He gave a firm handshake. He spoke with a mixture of assurance and nerves. And I wondered, when did my little one who used to delight in dump trucks and mud puddles grow into this? When did the child who was obsessed with a certain tank engine mature into the young man who now sat beside me speaking of his hopes for the future? When did my little boy become a young man with only a year and a few months left at home?
Throughout the last 14 years, the Lord has graciously used my children to refine me, and this situation was no different. In that moment I was keenly aware of the power of my words and my reaction. But just as quickly as the Lord convicted me, he also reminded me that His mercies are new each morning and his grace is sufficient. Because when the Lord convicts, he also comforts. It’s his kindess that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).
How does a mother get used to the reality of waning time? How does she hold with an open hand the memory of the tenderness of those early years and the swelling emotions of growing a child and watching him fly?
To all the moms who get a bit teary at the start of the school year … to the moms…
I took the girls to one of our favorite coffee shops last week, and all around me were parents of babies and toddlers. Their little ones toddled up and down the lawn, when it suddenly hit me with perfect clarity: the sun has nearly set on this season for me. My children are getting older, and there’s sadness in this reality. But there’s also joyful anticipation, because the dawning of this new season brings with it a surprising awareness that there is so much sacred beauty ahead.
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