Tomorrow is the long haul back to campus, loading and unloading for another year at college. Today is the last Saturday with our youngest. I have gotten used to this process, she being the youngest of three, but I have never grown to like it. I know they need to go away and grow up and do all those kinds of things to be the adult they will be. And yet, the ache to keep her close, to keep her sisters close by, is still very much there. Once they were each part of me, and then part of us. The noise, the friction, the laughter, the bumps and tears - all of it was part of us. And now, here is another moment to remind me that she is totally she -separate from me but related. And I must let her go and not embarrass her or cling too much. I never have been clingy, but I would have been if any of them had let me. And yet I have been so blessed by their lives intertwined with mine, if but for a season, a summer, a weekend.
Today, I want to hold in prayer all of those parents and children who are in this necessary and mysterious time of parting ways. All of those who are letting go and all of those who are escaping. All of those who are finally getting some freedom and those who are aching to see their loved ones again. I want to remember those whose partings have been painful and hurtful and those who can't imagine how lucky and normal they are. I hope we can all remember that God is with each of us, the leavers and the left, the runners and those who are run from. We are embedded in God, despite how lost or alone we might feel. God is recreating a new identity in each of us, a new belonging, a new sense of home. May we all be showered with patience and humor as we change again with the seasons.
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