Dear ones,  

I share the following for all those who are letting their children go further into their own lives.  Into Kindergarten. Into the dorm.  Into the next season of their lives.  I share the following from my heart that doesn't quite yet know how to reconcile itself with the term "empty nest."  

This is a poem I wrote last year before our son Luke left for college.  I know I wrote about change last week as well, and I have loved your responses.  But this remains a deep and tender time for me and for so many...I speak from that place again. With hope.  With love.  For all of us that ache...for what we have had and have to let go of.  For what we have longed for and never known.  For the questions unanswered and the hearts that remain held, though tossed.

Stasi

we eat dinner every night at 6pm

my sons take turns setting the table, clearing the table, washing the dishes, their duties.

the first one left and adjustments had to be made.

two years later the second one left and the plan fell apart.

a shrinking table.

a quieter one.

one leaves next week.  the last one.

empty spaces at 6pm.

i am a mother.

i am an ocean of cherished moments held in the sea

i am deep longings and memories and regrets and desires grasping to keep the waves from moving on.

around me, all of life shifts and moves and changes, changes, changes.

change the only steady.

my sons. they grow. they grow well. they grow up.

they grow away.

my pantry is orderly

my laundry is less

my grocery cart light

but my heart is full and heavy and confused.

rejoicing in these fine young men entering their worlds—ready to create—engage—become—discover

ready to leave

their mother.

my heart is an ocean of movement and life.  recieving life and nourishing life.  my heart breaks upon the distant shores that fleet away though i want them near, my heart breaks like waves against rocks, grasping to keep close that which i cannot

the connection i see turns to spray in the air then disappears.

invisible then. but still true.  still true, right?

i am a mother. fully. completely.  it defines my heart, my soul, my spirit, my body, my dreams, my mind, my longings, my life. it is who i am. not merely what i do.

an empty ocean then. an empty nest then. a quiet home then. housing this changing, changing mother.

i am a mother to sons who in all goodness have moved away and into the next season of their lives.  i bless them.  i miss them.

what is my life now?  they were my center. my focus. first. last.  in between.  still are...but further away with less to offer, less to say.

am i still an ocean? 

please help me, Jesus, to continue to be their mother—to mother them well—to continue to have the life you are leading me to live.  to love. to offer. to walk forward into the expanding horizons washed washed washed by beckoning waves.

i keep them as they go.  i am theirs.  they are mine.  but differently now. space. respect. dignity. honor. love. laughter. less teaching. less instruction. less time.

now i guide by how i live and love. in Jesus.  Jesus, help me. Jesus in me, help me.  Jesus.  Jesus.  live. in and through the change.  i need you.  this is too much.  this feels like too much.  this feels too hard. hard hard hard.

yet softly i remain held.

my heart is an ocean held.  deeply i know this.

i am held steady in the constant moving stream by You. my heart’s home.  my unchanging irrefutable immovable definition.  my truest center. even as i toss toss toss.