My life feels like it is on a fast track right now. Many things seem to be happening to us or we are choosing new paths, and with any change, whether unwanted or wanted, there is unease. Transitions are painful. Remember the pain near the end of childbirth? New life is arriving and soon, but first we go through that final phase of birthing aptly named transition. It’s the hardest and most challenging, psychologically, emotionally, and physically. We don’t think we will get through it, but we do. And a new life is there to greet us.
We are in transition as a family. There are different educational choices coming for some of our children. Even today, we received a long-awaited placement for one of our sons. This fall will look different in the life of how I homeschool and who will be here. My daughter will be in and out of our home this summer before she goes back to college for her Senior year. And finally, our oldest son announced to us on Sunday that he is moving out this week, a plan that has been a long time in the making. I just received a text that he gets his key to his apartment in just a few hours. He is flying away from the nest, and I didn’t anticipate how sad I would feel.
We prepare our nests, these God-given homes, to be places to build our families. We make them secure, safe, a soft place to land. We provide in physical needs, for emotional growth, and for spiritual sensitivity. We put opportunities in their path, help them course-correct, cheer them, listen deeply, and affirm personhood and ability. We watch closely, pray deeply, guard as best we can, strengthen for when we can’t, and trust God with the results. I can say that to the best of my ability with the humility to acknowledge my own brokenness, blind spots, and missed opportunities, that I have parented with grace and intention in my home. My parenting journey with my firstborn doesn’t end today, of course, but it absolutely changes, and I feel that deep pain of transition.
I sit here with tears in my eyes, knowing and believing that all that hard work mattered. The years of sacrifice, intention, walking an often lonely parenting path. I am looking at a grown man now capable of working full-time, providing for himself, and taking the steps towards independent freedom. I am deeply proud of him, because I know the deep, personal challenges he has had to overcome. It’s a day of celebration and victory even in spite of some of my maternal hesitation and concern. I place him in God’s hands as another cord has been cut between us.
Isn’t this what we have been preparing for all these years? We don’t prepare them for a life at home with us for all of their days. Our homes are only temporary childhood spaces for them until they claim their own. We nurture their wholeness, their belief in themselves to work hard, to launch, to make their own way in this world. We eschew enmeshment, that maternal urge to make them need us even as adults, viewing ourselves as indispensable. We prepare them to fly, even though it will be felt as loss to our caregiving souls.
What an honor I feel right now to build nests for these children. What a privilege. I am so grateful that I got the opportunity to provide space for my unique + interesting + tender first born all these years. I will treasure all these things in my heart just as Mary did.
Feeling tender,
Aimee
Thank you for articulating so well this journey of motherhood! The transition is indeed painful and although that is what we prepare them for, the loss and grief are real as each one flies from the nest. I, too, am trusting God with outcomes and learning to say less, listen more, and encourage often as I navigate with adult children.