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Pain tripped its way across my heart - crashing through every barrier I had erected to stand sentinel over my heart. It knew its way through every single one of them – food, too much time on the Internet, or watching TV. I didn’t really want to feel the pain and all the other emotions that came with it, but I suppose the only way to healing, was to feel.
Why did I have to go through this again? I was sure I had finally made my way through the portals of letting go, but here I was again, on this side of yet another one. My heart was excruciatingly sad, crushed with the weight of this torture.
Change kept knocking at the door of my heart; I was always reluctant to answer it. I wanted things to stay as they had always been, with my little girl always being… my little girl. I had let go many times over the years, realizing that the letting go process started the moment she left my womb, entering the outside world. I let go when she took her first step, spoke her first word. There was the first time she got on the school bus, and we snapped a picture. She looked so cute standing there, waving back at us and smiling – so excited to go off to school. Thankfully they don’t start them out six hours a day right at first – I’m not sure I would have survived that.
Fourth grade came and we decided to home school – a change, but a happy one. Our daughter would be with us all the time. My husband was disabled at the time, so we would both be teaching her. What fun years those were. But then there was more letting go when she became self-taught during the high school years. She also started spending more time with friends and at youth group; all good things of course, but making me sad nonetheless. How does a mother tell her child she can’t go and be with her friends? She doesn’t – but she listens with intent delight when that child shares about her adventures and gives glimpses of her heart.
More changes came as she grew older and I sighed with each one. A boyfriend emerged on the scene bringing with him a new set of challenges. For the first time we had to set a curfew – for a 19 year old. Things didn’t start off real great with the new relationship – I made some terrible mistakes in how I handled things.
A year-and-a-half later, we feel like we’re still trying to salvage the pieces… I’m probably making it sound worse than it is, but this mother’s heart is sad that she seems to have lost her little girl and is having a hard time accepting that she is 21, not 12. The truth of the matter is, I just need to learn to get to know the woman she is becoming. I have to cross into the portal of adulthood with her, not stand outside continuing to look back at all the closed portals of childhood that I yearn to cling to so desperately, when times were easier.
Parenting is hard work – but this… this new stage, of having an adult daughter living in the house with us… well, it’s the hardest stage yet. I thought the toughest stages were behind us and that no more were to come. I was wrong. I had dreams of long conversations and being friends – there would be this nice smooth transition from childhood to adulthood with the same closeness we always shared. Instead I have to try and get to know my daughter as she is now, with hopes and dreams and her own set of values.
Change is inevitable and I don’t like it. I was telling God just the other day how I don’t like all these changes and He reminded me that He never changes.(i) Because of that, I can go to the changeless One when I am feeling alone, sad, and heavy with the weight of overwhelming emotion, knowing that He will always be there for me. He will comfort me, hold me close, and let me know in His gentle way that He loves me and will walk with me through these changes, giving me all I need – His fathomless mercy and grace.
(i) Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17
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