the sending forth

One of my daughters, whom I call Little Bird here, is in the process of applying to a summer program. She is so excited about the possibility; it’s in an area she has a great deal of interest and will prepare her for what she would like to study. I am excited for her—even just for a chance to practice applications and interviews, which are a skill in and of themselves. Underneath the surface, I think we’re both excited about it as a step into young adulthood: she, ready for more freedom and individuality, and I, to watch her do what I’ve been preparing her for, with a healthy degree of anxiety. And like everything has been with this first child, it reminds me that we’re about to do this several more times with our subsequent children.

I sense we are at the beginning of the sending-forth. Little Bird will be in high school next fall; it feels like the tide is going out, and we’re about to watch her set out with it. I know we’ve got a few years, but I also know it’s going to go by quickly. It’s an exciting time as she begins to think about her high school years in context of what will happen afterwards—colleges, degrees, programs, travel, vocation, etc.

It’s like a curtain has been pulled back, only slightly, not enough to see details, but enough to see that there’s a lot behind that curtain, a lot of life where her dad and I won’t be with her. This is as it should be. But with that comes so many unknowns. When I was a teenager, I saw how my parents, who had grown up in the wild and free ‘60’s, looked at the world I was growing into with confusion. And now I am looking at the world my children are growing into with a similar feeling. I can’t possibly prepare them for everything that will come their way. My job has been—and is—to give them the resources so they know how and where to look for the answers, God help me.

This is where it gets real. She’s about to embark on the part of her life that she will actually remember. Her years with me under this roof will be a blur in a decade or so, though it will always be her foundation. I am suddenly standing still—looking ahead, and looking behind—reflective about the past and prayerful about the future; I am aware that there have been victories and failures as I have reared this child, this firstborn who taught me how to be a mother. I am aware of the grace that is paramount in parenting, and the knowledge that she has always been God’s girl first. I am keenly aware that she was born for such a time as this, and goes nowhere alone.