School is starting this week for many of us, if it hasn’t already, and for some moms this can bring a fair amount of stress and anxiety. We may not feel great about our child’s school or her friends or her teacher this year. We may have concerns about our daughter’s development or how she’ll make it through algebra. We may wonder if we’ll ever have a good relationship with our teen again.
And then there are those of us who are facing a new kind of letting go. This week I am taking my youngest daughter to college, and next week I take my middle daughter to a new city 800 miles away where she’ll spend the next three years in grad school. Very soon my nest will be empty.
I’m trying to have the right perspective on it, I really am. On most days I believe with all my heart that this is a great thing, the right thing, the best thing. It is! But I’d be less than human if I didn’t admit that at times (and sometimes at the strangest times), my throat closes up and my eyes well with tears and I just struggle for a few minutes.
This prayer is for those moments that we all experience. The moments when our chest hurts for loving our daughters so hard and we wonder how we will make it through the changes. So whether you’re sending your first to kindergarten or your last to college, this prayer is for you.
*****
Father,
Thank you that you see us.
You see the mom who lingers in the carpool line, watching her daughter walk into school for the first time, wishing she would stop growing up so fast. You see her tears pooling just beneath the surface and her struggle to keep those tears from falling. But they do.
You see the mom who struggled with her teen just this morning over the outfit or the boyfriend or the homework. Already. She only wants the best for her daughter because she loves her so very much.
