Ramblings

The inevitable has begun. Yesterday we spent some time with my in-laws. As we were getting ready to leave Angie had to say her good-byes to her grandparents (my hubby’s mom and dad). My mother-in-law took it the hardest and in fact began to cry (I’ve only seen my mother-in-law cry like this once before). Angie stood by her grandma really dumbfounded (later Angie said she did not expect this). Angie bent down and hugged her grandma and they cried together. Angie left visibly shaken. I simply held her as we walked to the car.

There are those times that I, as a mother, wish I could make all things better for my children. When I wish I could shelter them from every storm of life, every pain that they encounter, yet I can’t, I’m not supposed to. Only God can be there for them and can make it better and can use all for His glory and to make them into the person that HE intended them to be.

This season of my mothering is gut-wrenching at times. On one hand I am rejoicing at the fact that one of my children is going off to serve Her LORD and Master Jesus Christ (don’t get me wrong this is extremely difficult for me. My daughter and I are very close and I am going to miss her terribly, but in the grand scope of eternity she will only be gone but for a moment). On the other hand I am watching the self-destruction of my other child. How helpless I feel when a seed of my womb continues to dig himself deeper and deeper into the miry clay. How I long for the “omnipotence” to make it all whole and well.

YET…

YET…I word that carries with it hope, that tells me that this is not the end but only a path to the end. A word that brings light to this dark and deep hole. It reminds me of Habakkuk when he recounted all that was “bad/fruitless”, then he “recalls” and ends with YET I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places…(Habakkuk 3:18-19)

You know I wonder how parents that don’t have Jesus as their LORD and Savior survive. Because my hope, my assurance comes from KNOWING that the same God that will care for my daughter wherever she goes is the same God that will take my son out of the miry clay and set his feet upon the Rock which is Jesus Christ. The same God that keeps one can save the other and can bring me JOY and PEACE in the midst of it all. I don’t need to figure it all out; all I need is to continue keeping my eyes fixed upon Jesus the author and finisher of my faith.

“Whatever I keep in my hands, I will lose. But whatever I set in the hands of Jesus will never be lost.”