Dear Ladies,
How is your summer going? Has it flown by? Has it been a summer with purpose?
I'm ready to look back on mine and in some ways it has been a blur!
There have been camps and funerals and Bible studies and friends and dinners and my children have been home.....
Tomorrow my youngest leaves for college. It has been a joy to help her get some of her packing done. To pick things she likes to take with her to decorate her college dorm.
Today a friend asked if I was "ready" to send her off....I said, I've already had my "moments" and I'm ready. She will be 2 hours away and at a quality college. My friend and I then went on to discuss how you "let go."
Perhaps you have some tips on how to "let go" of your children, or should I say young adults.
For me it has been a process. As tiny babies parents have great control over them, they need us, almost every moment. Then they grow to become a toddler and we help them along, they still need our care. As they grow we let them choose and help them to be able to make good choices for themselves.
As they enter Junior High age, they let you know that they want to make more and more choices on their own....and you allow as much of that as you can, since they don't need you as much as when they were younger. Then it's High School and they must be given room to make more and more choices...it seems that 18 year mark comes quickly and "legally" they can walk away after that at any time.
It can be difficult to pry the hands off and allow them to make their own decisions.
"Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it."
Proverbs 22:6 There appears to be a training time and a time to let go.
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2 comments:
My daughter in law stated things very well, in a recent post. "In comes a baby, a little life. Someone who will depend on us for everything in life until they are, little by little, able to depend on God. And it is our responsibility as parents to facilitate that transfer."
It was hard when Reuben was no longer calling and asking "Mom, I'm ready can you pick me up?", or if he had the car, he'd show up at my place of work to pick me up. I did not wear make up for 2 weeks after we left him (also the previous 2 years when we left, my daughter Heaven)both at Texas A & M. I cried on my way home and holding my breath as I knew I would have to face an empty house. This went on and over time, the magic thing happened. Terry fixed a lovely dinner for me, while I was at my part time job as a bookkeeper, there were flowers, candles, wine. I was with my best friend in the world! I started enjoying this. He kept on surprising me, there were dinners out, a movie all these at the middle of the week! That made it even better, we felt like young kids sneaking out. That and wonderful friends, once these ladies parked outside our house, it was 8 p.m. on Friday. They called "IT'S GIRLS NIGHT OUT! Can you come?" I asked Terry, he said yes,they said "Great! because we are parked right in front of your house! We had appetizers at the Texas Rose restaurant, we drove for hours telling stories, listening to 60's and 70's music. It felt strange, then I realized, I had raised a family, this was earned, a little bit of ME time. I loved it!
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