Letting Go of our Words

It's gonna be okay Baby.

Mommy is right here.

Here, let me help you with that.

I can show you, come here.

Need a hug? Come here...

Want Mommy to kiss it and make it better?

You need to pick up all your toys before you get the game out.

Walk right over here and your shoes won't get dirty.

Try this...

You need to eat these veggies so you can have your pudding.

Play outside for 20 minutes and then you can watch a show.

Mommy asked you to stop doing that please.

   

Oh the control we once had as the Mommy. The responsibility of a parent to be in control, and self-controlled when you felt as if you were going to lose all control in the next breath can be overwhelming. As a Mom, I loved every phase I entered, from newborn sweetness, infant giggles, to toddler voices and flower picking to the exploratory phases of elementary ages. (For me, this was the most physically fatiguing.) The independent learning and ability for deeper comprehensions of older elementary into middle school with managing friendships and extracurriculars where home became a safe base to slide home to and yet a place quickly left for a social. Hormones get a little tricky during these years and it's a different kind of Mommy fatigue than the Terrible 3's. Talk about being emotionally drained. There's so much more to manage and process. 

Enter high school, where all the encouraging and instructing things you used to say become distant cliche's because they somehow know it all. Friends, homework, jobs, girlfriends, don't forget extracurriculars dictate the schedule. Your family learns how to orbit in the same universe, especially if you have more than one child. There are still cuddles and laughter and expectations amongst the power struggles and closed doors but the leave and cleave begins to pull your child away one little tug at a time, as it ought. It's funny how intuition and reading between the lines replaces the eyes in the back of our head. 
For 18 years, we intentionally train them up in righteousness, good habits, relational skills, etiquettes and all the practical living life stuff making many decisions for them to protect them from themselves explaining our logic and reasoning time and time again. Year by year, our mouths find the subtle clinching of fewer words with less command and more compassion in each syllable. I don't find myself literally saying less really, but in some ways yes. You don't have to explain or teach as much. They get old enough to understand deeper reasoning and it can be a simple head nod and they seem to understand exactly what you are saying. For all these years our words held a special power of authority over them. In older years, the authority gradually shifts to counsel. Exasperated, I remember thinking, "Will they ever get it?!?" Ha, I still have those thoughts. I will always be praying!! 

Through every season of age there is an element of letting go, as you allow them the freedom to make choices and learn to navigate the consequences of their choices, giving less command and more observational prompts. You watch them make choices you may or may not agree with and with that, experience the outcomes which hopefully reap a good harvest and not depleting ones. This is probably the hardest part in each phase, letting go and trusting they know what they know, knowing you have done all you know to do. There's always gonna be regrets as a parent but there's always going to be grace and gratitude.
My Mommy's heart wants to protect them in every age from all harm, evil, bad decisions, pains, which is impossible to do. Truthfully, we can attempt to wrap them in bubble wrap all the days of their lives, but by doing that, we block God. At some point, with God as their ultimate Shepherd, they need to make mistakes and adapt, learning lessons from their own mistakes and what they need to do different next time. I don't believe in the School of Hard Knocks leaving them to figure each age out on their own, but at the same time, we must learn when our words have been spoken enough and the heart stretched as wide as it can go for them and trust that the Lord is their net, and not ourselves.  They are His, we have only been entrusted with them for a time such as this. We raise them up to leave and the net that follows them all the days of their lives is The Lord. 
I imagine how our bodies adapt to the approaching birth of our child from the womb as the lining thins and the cervix opens, so it is with our hearts, slowly stretching out for our child to have their own breath and beat in life, separate from ours. One, yet two. And two, yet one in Christ we live our lives.
Praying for all the Mamas out there seeking the Lord for the energy, wisdom, care, strength, discernment, self-control, gentleness, patience, grace, love, faith to choose our words for edifying, encouraging, benefiting to the raising up of these precious ones the Lord has placed in our homes, one year at a time, until death do us part. To the Glory of God, towards the Hope of Salvation and Mercy of Life, redemptive Grace and undeniable Love. Give us tender hearts and strong souls to train them up in You that they may follow You all the days of their lives. Bless us, Bless them, Bless You. Waving the white flag of surrender, Amen. 

"You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deuteronomy 6:7 (ESV)