Date: Wed, May 20, 2009 at 10:23 AM

Subject: Graduate

The following email is one I wrote in May of 2009.  Today Henry is happily married to Taylor and Julie will celebrate her wedding to Barklay the first of June. AsI reread this email, I reflected on how quickly time passes and now my adult children have their own kids and truly are making “their” own stories, with their families.  

“Last night I went to a combined family celebration for Henry, my nephew and Julie, my niece. They were the highlighted high school graduates...and in a few short weeks they will be off to their designated colleges. It is so easy to look at our children and recognize the many stages that they go through... because we live with them and have watched them grow. We see them as babies...and watch with go through toddler to preschool, to middle school, to high school, to college and then to careers and families. All the way we have given our best to direct them, to encourage them, to comfort them, to protect them, to satisfy them and to grow them up.

But best is not always doing what is easy...as a matter of fact best is sometimes the hardest and toughest route to take.....because that is where the greatest lessons of faith and character and a true awareness of who we are take root.   

We expect "their" best from our children..but as I was reflecting yesterday, I know so often that I slide from giving my best to them. I tend to shy away from the hard roads...from the uncomfortable lessons of truth and reality....I like to sugar coat stuff and not face hard facts...and though that is a soft and non confrontational approach it is not necessarily giving my best. I visited with a darling mom last night who said that she tells her college aged daughter that "her story is her story" and she (the mom) is not the author of her daughter's story....she is. Be it with finances, social decisions, classes, who to hang with, places to go etc. Now that is putting the responsibility back into the hands of the rightful owner. We give our children roots but if we are not able to release them from the nest then they will never be able to truly fly. 

My best for my children would to encourage them to make decisions on their own not making decisions for them! If invited, I could sure share my best effort as to what I see the consequences of a decision either way might be but it is their story.....my best would be letting them tough it out and not getting in the middle of a conflict and trying to fix it. If I was convinced of this theory and would live by it,  my best may often appear to be my worst....because I would let things work out on their own and not try to smooth over incidents that may cause frustration, anxiousness, defeat or feelings of abandonment. And sometimes my best would appear unloving...when it in fact it is giving my children an opportunity to see what they are made of and tap into gifts and talents and strengths that are lingering within them.

Parenting is not for whimps...and I am, a lot of the times, a whimp. It takes a true grit to be tough when God calls you to be tough. If only I would remember that they are God's children first...and when decisions are made that I don't agree with and don't line up with my way of thinking....God will take care of that and will grow them through it.  

We tend to want to make life easy for our children...to protect them from failures, be their buffer from pain, or to make choices based on our experiences instead of encouraging them to make choices based on their experiences. It is hard sometimes to back off...especially if you have a "fix it" mentality like I do but I am learning, slowly, that when I don't back off..I am stealing their opportunity to grow...grow in relationships, grow in confidence, grow in knowing who God has made them to be and not in who I want them to be....not to mention when I get too involved I am getting in God's way. 

Children, no matter what age they are, are kind of like seedlings...they need a little space to start off with...then as they grow their space must grow too or they will be stifled and stuffed into a container that is much too small for them to bloom. I am one of those children myself....as my roots with God grow deeper then God allows me more space....so that he can continue to grow me. 

As I watched the children linger around, not just the graduates but the ones of all ages ease around and visit about anything from the new dog to a humorous take on parental control....it occurred to me that we are all children set in different stages....and God's best for me is not always the easy road. And sometimes he too...wants to pull from within me what he knows is there because he planted it there.  

We all will graduate at life's end....we will have gone through the motions and walked through the stages. We will have learned lessons the hard way and have found power in knowledge...but unless we have found God somewhere in our mix of lifetime activity all will be for naught. For our time on this earth is limited...we have limited visits, we have limited time, we have limited opportunities...we have limited experiences....and limited boundaries, all which are a part of who we have become. 

These graduates tonight represented a place in time that has now gone...and a hope for a new beginning...and a new horizon. The things of yesterday will not all be forgotten; they will be intertwined into the new beginnings. For what we learn in our varied stages of life and advice we have taken to heart from those who we have sought out for guidance are the very ingredients that we incorporate into our decision making processes and they ultimately define us. But it is in the stages that we grow and become who we are. The stages, each of them are all a part of God's process to bring us to where he envisions us to be.  

As high school ends and these graduates leave home....many of them are jubilant about the freedom that is upon them. They will be responsible for their own time management, their laundry, their relationships, their responsibilities, their living quarters, their food etc. But this freedom, however disciplined and maintained will be reflected in behavior, performance and personality. For even freedom has bounds....and those bounds are bounds of righteousness...and doing what is right. If we do not live within those bounds of rightful responsibility...which hardly any of us ever can...it is then that we are forced to readjust...and reevaluate and make a decision as to stay or go....do we stay and deny the need for adjustment or do we allow the reality of awareness to give us the courage to change. 

The more attentive we are to God's ways and God's will...the more available that freedom will be because righteousness will become a way within us rather than a wall that surrounds us. "Oddly enough, something of the will of God is contained in the very limits that we often try to sidestep or ignore. Living within limits in not in any way an acquiescence that is despairing, passive or fatalistic. Rather it honors the deepest realities of the life that God has given us. Life in this body at this age and stage." (Strengthening the Soul of Leadership...by Ruth Haley Barton).  

It doesn't matter what age or what stage we are in...we are alive and life is to be celebrated...as we each graduate from one passage to another. It is a worthy event to move forward in life...to accept challenges, to jump on opportunities, to have courage to pursue a dream, to have stamina to maintain balance and to persevere against odds..but it is a much greater satisfaction to move forward following God...seeking God, trusting God, and obeying God. For when life is over and we graduate to our eternal dwelling place...we may not be familiar with the place but we sure will know the master.” 

.  I will always be their mom, and love each of them with all my heart,  but “their” story, even as adults, is their own to make and live and share. My role is to love them and the precious grandchildren that I have been blessed with and pray often  for them where ever they are in life. May God will walk beside them and guide them and help them to see His way and abide in it in the midst of so many worldly distractions.    

Dear Lord, Thank you for the stages that you have set before us. Help us to approach them with candor and diligence and a true and rooted faith in you and your "best" for our lives. Amen  

Praise God wherever you are or whatever situation he has allowed you to be in...for his Glory will shine through!

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