Loving Means Letting Go

I found this past year to be one of the most difficult as a Mom, as we sent our oldest, Micayla, off to college for the first time.  We were excited and proud of her and all that God was going to do in her life, yet we knew this was the beginning of many more changes.  In a little over a month we will be sending off our second oldest, Madelyn, to college.  How is this even possible, I seem to be asking myself more often than not…

We have been blessed with 6 children, that God has given us to care for and raise for Him.  We love them all dearly and are blessed to be a part of their lives.  Yet as each year quickly passes we know that we have to let go of them more and more.  That is the hard part.  We have always been a pretty close family, our kids tended to stay close to him rather than always at friends’ houses.  I always tried to make our home a place where other kids could come to and hang out.  Kind of safe haven for others to know they are always welcome to.  

However, when they all begin to go their different directions, all of a sudden it seemed like a pretty big empty house.  This summer that has become more of the reality.  Two of our kids chose to serve in different ministries this summer.  My oldest son, Nathaniel, has been working at Twin Pines camp this summer in the kitchen.  He is just about half way through his weeks there. And our second oldest daughter, Madelyn, is working with Christian Endeavor Summer Mission Weeks as part of the summer staff.  She has been gone for two weeks already and has about 3 more to go.  What an adjustment it has been to go from 6 down to 4.   Well yesterday, our oldest, Micayla left too. She also has a heart to serve.  Most of the summer she has worked full time, saving for school, but two weeks this summer, she is able to serve at two different camps. One, serving at a camp as a motivator/mentor “M&M” at C.E.’s Summer Assembly Summer Conference and then in a couple of weeks she will be a youth advisor for our youth groups summer camp.  Evan and Kienan will join Micayla at Summer Assembly this week.  They are so looking forward to being fed God’s Word and being with friends.  However, I have a feeling they will also be feeding others with their servant hearts. 

God has been so good to us in allowing our kids to all have a servant’s heart.  They want to go and do His calling in their lives.  It’s exciting as parents to see that, yet hard at the same time. Hard because they aren’t home. Rewarding because we know they are being obedient to the calling God has placed on their heart. That’s why I chose the title; “Loving means letting go”.  As much as we want to keep our kids close to us, we have to let them go.  We have to let them be free to do whatever it is God is calling them to do.  Whether it be a summer camp, a short or long term missions trip, the military, or even teaching half way across the country.  We have done what God has empowered us to do, maybe not perfectly but as best we could.  We have trained, taught and led them to listen to His calling, His direction, His plan for their life.  Wherever that might be and whatever that might be.   Now we watch and see all that He will do in and through them.  And at the end of the summer, we can sit and talk and reflect how God used each one of them differently.  That’s what I look forward to most.  Hearing about all of the “God Sightings” they each experienced. 

So keep loving on your kids, and when it’s time, let them go and let God do His thing.  

 ^{Proverbs 22:5}  "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."