She will leave. A few more days, Lord willing, will pass and
she will leave me. She will get on a
huge plane and travel across an ocean I have never traveled across and see
sights I have never seen. She will live for
months in a world I have never known.
Letting a child go is
never easy for a parent. Whether they
are going next door to spend the night for the first time, leaving for a week
away at camp, or going away to college, watching them walk away with that
packed bag is like feeling a part of our heart leave our inner soul. Yet, we let them go. We open the cocoon and set them free when we
feel they are ready, or know it is time for their wings to spread. We pray for
guidance and let them make choices, but not easily or willingly, for we know
the distance and separation will often bring sadness, tears, and fears into our
life.
How did God do
it? As our Father, how did He set us
free and allow us to be creatures of free choice, knowing He would lose so many
of us to the world and its temptations? How did He, the One who could have
arranged this world any way He pleased, extend to humans the blessing of being
made in His image and create us with a mind to make a choice to leave Him?
We are given the
answer in three short words, "God is love" (John 4:8). These simple words speak volumes about why
our Heavenly Father sets us free and why, in turn, we, as loving parents, must
be willing, able, and ready to set our children free to experience life on
life's terms and make their own decisions.
It is quite simply, though not the easy thing to do, the loving thing to
do.
So I will take her to
the airport and put her on a plane that will allow her to follow her dreams,
knowing she will come back to me a different person. The comforting thing I know without a doubt,
every step of the way, is that she will most certainly come back to me. As long as it is humanly possible, she will
return. The beautiful thing about love
is that it works both ways and, when given to a receiving heart, it always
returns.
Roberta Pledge
(8/10/14)
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