Milestones



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Yes, it's that time of year.  It's time to plow full steam ahead into graduation party planning.  I think I have the bare bones of what I want in play; who's catering, where it's going to be held and on what day and time.  This week I'll be searching out decorations, a tent, filling out and sending out invitations...  It's exciting to be forward planning and not tied up in worried knots. 

I'm reading through the bible in a year, along with many other members in our church, and today's reading has us in Chronicles.  It's pretty dry reading all by it's self.  But when you put it in the context of life changes and milestones (like the one I am currently planning for my eldest daughter) it's enough to take my breath away.  I see the history and their linkages, generation after generation of people who lived, loved, had children, grandchildren, buried their spouses and were mourned in their turn.  I imagine all of those milestones stacked atop one another and it hits me... The God of the universe is intimately involved in the everyday decisions that they made, that I make. 

The milestones our children achieve are important to Him.  They become benchmarks for memory.  They are places where paths diverge and the tiny angle of degree that they choose in these days play out into the realms of where they go to school, what they choose for careers, who they meet that imbue their lives, who they marry and where they will live.

There is this thing that has to happen when a child comes of age, when the parent steps back and no longer gets to take credit for the choices their children make, nor can they take blame.  It's hard though.  We've spent our entire lives sheltering them, picking up after them, interceding for them, and taking total responsibility.

So, as I go through the process of letting go, of encouraging Lyss to make her own decisions and supporting her when she does, I have to remember that I'm not leaving her alone.  She's still in the father's hands.  She still has a comforter, redeemer-savior who is intimately involved in her every day.  Who knows how many plot twists her life will have, but with each milestone and benchmark she arrives at, she has access to the very same hands that held mine.

I'll trust Him to care for her like he cared for me.  That no matter how high and low her experiences take her, she will never be alone.

And that will be enough.