I’m really feeling the end of summer glow this year. This late golden hour farewell both warms and warns me, like a heartfelt, knowing embrace. It’s a hello and goodbye at the same time. I see our shadow on the ground extended with summers light and I’m amazed how big he is getting.
Rylan is almost 5 and going to be starting full-time kindergarten soon. I blinked and my baby is growing up. No matter how much fun I know he’ll have, it pains my heart to know he’ll be without those who love and know him deeply for the majority of his waking hours at such a tender age still. Yet, I know he’s totally ready for it. No matter how much I slow myself or him or our schedule down, nothing does the trick. It still goes by way too fast. It was just yesterday when I was slicing his blueberries in half.
I’ve tried not to let the grief get the best of me, and for the most part it hasn’t but as the summer shadows extend, it’s creeping up. I’ve tried to reason that being distracted by and at work is a natural deterrent from idolizing my children. I’ve tried to reason that no matter how much time I have with them, it will never be enough for me - a lifetime on earth is just the very beginning, merely a prelude to an eternity of being near my sons, never to be parted again. Yet, I grieve because I know l’ll never get THIS time back.
This was the year Ry taught me more than I could have taught him. Parenting him has taught me softness and humility and absolute indifference to others’ opinions. He revealed my shortcomings and my selfishness, my need for forgiveness and grace, considering my mess-ups as a parent were far greater than his could ever be as a child. He taught me that wills should never be broken but bridled and directed in the way you see God is leading.
In his mercy, God has shown me that I can have all the influence in the world and yet absolutely no control over the outcome. Somehow this lack of absolute control is grace for me and mercy for my son. Yet, here we are side by side. He just can’t wait to grow up and I want him to stay little. I need more of the face to face, because I know soon it will be heads down for homework. Heads down down for studying. Heads down for practice. Heads down for lights out. All on his own. And I still need years more of the face to face.
God gives us children as a blessing, to keep us close to Him, and to further sanctify us (along with a host of other reasons which are all good) so we can appreciate His own work in us. I also believe God gives us children to keep us humble because try as we might, no child is perfect, and even more surprising no parent is (ha!) I learned a lot these first five years…my selfish heart motives, my short-temper, my over-indulgence, my complacency and my pendulum moods. Dare I say even the pedestal on which I placed ‘peace’ and ‘quiet’.
While there are hosts of tips, checklists, instructions, fool-proof strategies, coaches and master classes offered by the world, I find one thing necessary to know what my child needs…the special and unique prompting of the Holy Spirit…where it is only He that can help me meet my child wherever he is at. To get down on his level. To cup his cheeks in my hands. To look him in his eyes. To model repentance. To ask for forgiveness. Parenting is a lifetime of humility. It’s me that needs conviction when my anger gets the best of me. It’s me that needs comfort when I fear the future for my son. It’s me that needs prompting to seek out my son at his level when he’s frustrated and can’t express himself.
Lord knows I’m going to miss these long sunny days where I get to push these precious babes in their stroller or buckle them up safely in their car seats, or pull them up into our bed at night - the special places where we are all together, and all safe, all within arms reach…trapped by physical presence even though we’re all facing the same direction and not each other. Slowly, I’m getting it. This is what He intended.
I’m learning to let go a tiny bit at a time. To embrace the adventure of this life that God’s planned for my son. I’m trying to see this one, Rylan, my strong-willed night owl, how God sees him. Rylan isn’t God’s grandson, he is his son. The more I want that face to face with my sweet boy, the more I realize my job is to discipline myself to instead point his face towards Jesus. That is the face he needs to seek. The more time I spend with him the more I realize how much love and patience and grace and mercy Jesus has for me in my failings as a parent and the more I adore my beautiful, special boy. I sense a few more weeks of warmth. Perhaps we will be granted an Indian summer…in more ways than one.
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