For Mamas ~ When Your Little Boy Grows Up

This one won’t be eloquent. It won’t be grammatically correct. It might not even make sense to anyone but me. But that’s ok. It is just written because I am full of emotion and there is something in me that just knows I need to remember this moment.

This is the season I am in. Moves. Changes. Things familiar scattered with all things new.

This melding of many seasons all at once. And today, in this moment, they all came together. And I am in a puddle of tears sitting at my desk.

I just saw this picture on Facebook:

Yes, that is my first-born little boy on one knee asking this precious young woman that we have prayed for since he was a baby to be his bride.

The backdrop? New York City – a far cry from his Texas hometown of 240,000. He had lived there all of 13 days when this moment happened a few days ago, having just moved upon his college graduation in December due to a job offer.

That last tie of our immediate little family to the only town any of us had ever lived in as a family before the rest of us moved last summer.

That last tie, untied. Untied and opened, ready to receive the “new”.

Things are changing. Seasons are changing. Our family is changing, and growing. And this Mama’s heart is hurting and rejoicing all at once.

This is what we were created to do as moms. Raise them up to let them go.

Let them go to charge into their own futures with their own plans that the Lord has laid out before them.

And the beginning of that future could look like a move to a big, new city and being positioned on one knee.

I am so very thankful in this season of tears caused from realizing many things will never be the same in our family, that the flip side of this is there is such an exciting gift. A gift to all of us. The gift of another daughter and sister! A daughter we already love so much.

And…the gift of seeing my little boy becoming the man God intended him to be.

So, as things are changing, my prayers for this son of mine are changing. Growing. Growing to include the one that captivated his heart.

I pray for them both to first of all ~ love the Lord more than each other. Nothing else matters. Nothing. There will be hard days. That may be hard to believe in this moment, in the “new”, but that will change. The Lord won’t. Love Him more.

I pray for them both to listen more than they speak. The old saying, “God gave us two ears but one mouth” bears much truth.

I pray for them to love fiercely. Never take a day for granted and never go to bed angry. Always say “I love you.”

I pray for them to give more than they receive. Not only to one another, but to others in general.

I pray they treasure the early years of counting pennies, stretching budgets, and living on love. Those days that seem the hardest, but profit the most growth. Not only toward one another, but also in trust of the Lord.

I pray they never get too busy. Too busy to dance in the rain, eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by candlelight, walk in the snow with hot chocolate, hold hands. Dream. Dream big…and never stop dreaming!

And then to add this for you mamas, as you look at your little ones and think, “Whew, thank goodness I have a long time before that season.”

Don’t blink.

It feels like just yesterday we were coming home from the hospital with this first born, just his daddy and I, sitting him down in his infant carrier on the couch. I honestly looked at my husband and said these words, “What do we do now?” He was so tiny and helpless and I felt so small and inadequate. I did not know the Lord then, but I still knew this task was way bigger than what I could do alone. I thank the Lord today he rescued my heart shortly after that, and that others were brought around me to teach me how to trust the Lord with this child. He was the Lord’s before he was mine.

I didn’t always do this well, and still fail often (I still have two more precious kiddos entrusted to me to go), but…

Today, I am just so grateful. So thankful. For God’s grace and mercy and provision in my son’s life, and continually in my own.

This truth is truly the Living Word to me in this moment:

Children are a gift from the Lord, a reward from a mother’s womb. A young man’s sons are like the arrows in a soldier’s hand. The man who fills his quiver with sons will be very blessed. ~ Psalms 127:3-5a

Thank you Lord for these good gifts! And for new beginnings to new chapters to this story You are continually writing ~ for all of us!

I will remember the sweetness of this moment of growing and change.