When Children Leave and Parenting Matters

“Special Needs Kids” and “Missions”.  I hear those words across the floor where Shaun Groves and Ann Dunagan pour out their hearts on compassion and world missions, at a conference I am speaking at.

And yet, here, my daughter, the one I spent eighteen years of my life with is floating around the floor sharing with strangers and people like her…her heart for the nations, her niche for the needy.

Still as mothers, sometimes we like to think that creation, that birthing of God’s master piece from the beginning, is our job to the end.  Holding children tight against us, trying to mold, and make, and create something with our very own hands…

When reality is, our wombs are nothing more than empty vessels where undeservingly, God grows, creates, and perfects in us a blessed offspring to remind the world that He is still creator, God, omnipotent over everything…not us.

And I forget that sometimes.

Forget that I am called not to be the Master-craftsman; but to stand back, ask, watch, witness what God does through my children that I could never dream of.

And I am not the maker, a creator, a blessed sacred deliverer….but a fragile creature, hoping not to burden, or break, or derail the ones He’s given me from His God ordained design, His purposes, His calling on their life.

So when I hear you there, telling them what YOU are like….I stand back and watch, watch with this awesome wonder that God has called you, planted something in you….and I can’t hold you back.

I hear you months back, coming home from teaching at a camp for kids with disabilities.  Your eyes shine just like when I first saw you, that first breathe I welcomed after a long night in the hospital. You talk long, hard, about each child; their name, their needs, how they impacted you….your heart for the littlest ones with special needs is vividly apparent…

And it was then I think most, I realized your callings are His, not mine.  Your heart uniquely designed by Him since the beginning of time…Him gifting you before He placed you in my eagerly hopeful insides.

Yes, I birthed you.  But, He knitted you together.  I delivered you, but He knows each hair on your head, the design of your thoughts, the passions that drive you to live for a greater cause…His call for you alone.  Ever day. Every thought. The purpose He has brought you and chosen you for, for this life.

So, when you told me you were leaving.  Told me you felt God calling you away six months to world missions a month after your eighteenth birthday….

I was taken back, awesomely shocked that He weaves the same passions in both of us…even though I am just your mother.

And I knew when you leaped fearless out from the heavens, parachute opening in a sky that has no limits…that nothing can stop you, no one can keep you from the God-designed calling that takes you to those place where mothers can’t go.  That place where God alone must hold your hand and keep you, though the womb I’ve known you in now lays unbearably empty.

You missed your flight.

The airline crew shaking their head saying you can’t get on your plane….us late due to a car accident on I5.  And yet I pray almost loudly un-polite, “Oh Jesus please get us on this flight”.  And somehow something shifts these dutiful workers to robotic-yes’, not only willingly admitting you, but even allowing your luggage to get past the already close portal.  Though the plane is shut and the hostesses refuse your calling…

It is then, when we least expect it, God stops the plane, He opens up the doors that takes us to the heaven.  And it is then, we know it’s all not coincident, or accident, or random wishes that get you where we are.  It’s a God plan. A divinely appointed time and purpose. No more, no less….

And who can stop God’s plans?  Not airline workers, not traffic accidents, not mothers gripping sorrow, not worldly dreams, not public school, not grueling people saying, “Look, act, be like we think that you should be”.

Cause baby, I recognize now, as you sit in your seat, high in the sky, far across the ocean, that you are His, God’s design, you are not some robotic, calculated creation meant to follow the crowds, live caught in the three-ring-circus that can sometimes drown us from ever hearing the slow, gentle tug of a God who richly loves us….

And oh sweetie, that’s what I want for you most of all, for you to be still, get low, continue to hear the very voice of The One who formed you in my womb so long ago.  For you to know The One who you are known by and you have known long before I saw those big brown sparkling eyes that first day in the hospital room.

And I want you to fly.  Really, I do.

Fly with the same passion that caused you to skydive from a plane, hear the same voice that drew you to the hearts of the special needs kids you taught at camp those summer days, drawing you to follow fearless, like the way you answered the call to spend six months away from us for missions…

Instead of following our culture that leads to business, lies, and distraction…too often lives wasted and we don’t even know it until it’s too late.

For you are uniquely and wonderfully made, called to fly, not drudge through life being like anybody else….

And you don’t have to be strong, or calculated, or equipped, or perfect to serve the God of the Universe….You just need to listen, be still, and follow like a sheep that knows, hears, and faithfully longs to please her Shepherd…the one so trustworthy and true.

And you make me proud baby…have I told you that?

Though my womb will always cry for that child to be physically near my heart like you were so long ago…

You will never leave the fractions of my mind, the fullness of my heart.  Because motherhood is not for temporary, it’s not a careless whim, a wasted life-time we spend investing in those precious jewels God has given us….

It’s the tender, trepidation that God would find glory in our every choice, that He would rise in this thing called, our temporary lives, because threads of time can never be broken.  Not now, not ever, not across the ocean….

And sometimes, we might just wake up and see our babies grown like women, chatting at a conference, telling others who they are, their dreams, the fullness of their calling…

And we must stand back, bow low to The One with open hands….

Thankful.

Ever so thankful that although our nests may be empty, our hearts will bare fruit, and each hour spent caring for those we love will be useful, fruitful as they fly, rising high in the heavens….

And it is then, He whispers confirmations…

“It is worth it.  Every hour.  Ever day.  Every moment.  Worth the time we spend with our children.”

I miss you sweetie.  But I just know you are going to change the world.  See you in six months, or sooner.  And may faith rise daughter….

In those star-like eyes that hold life, and power, and hope…but more import a reflection of the God of the Universe.

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