“I’ve been waiting for this moment and now it’s here and I’m not ready.”
This is what my daughter said to me the night we sat in our car on a dark street, waiting for another soccer family to pick her up and take her away for a weekend tournament.
The weeks ahead of that one moment were marked with anxiety, not knowing the family well, wondering how she would do without me.
So often life feels like that. Moments we knew were inevitable, but we just aren’t ready for them.
I Wasn’t Ready Either
Back then, I wasn’t ready for our son to drive on his own (could I just always be in the back seat?). I wasn’t ready for colleges to send him invitations (back, vultures, back!). Our kids were gearing up to fly to South Africa (SOUTH AFRICA) without us on a mission trip for 6 weeks. Life just kept coming at us.
If I thought I felt unprepared then, how much more now, as those college invites DID come, and he just left? And his sister, who also just got her license, and a job, will follow him before we know it.
Life relentlessly marches on, and these moments that feel unbearable keep happening.
I Thought I Would Be Ready
When they were little, I thought I couldn’t wait for these moments. I couldn’t wait for them to do it on their own. I couldn’t wait for my time back. I couldn’t wait.
I’ve been waiting for this moment – the moment when our kids would grow up and stretch out, becoming independent, learning to live without us.
And now it’s here, and I’m not ready.
But just like I told her at that moment, He is with us.
He has brought us to this moment, and He will carry us through.
And just like I promised He would be with her in those moments when I wasn’t there, I have to tell myself the same truth – He will be with them when I am not.
When we said goodbye to our kids that day at the airport, our friend who accompanied them saw the fear in my eyes for my 14-year-old and gently said, “We’ve got her. She’ll be okay.” And she was.
We walked through that, and college applications, and teenage drivers, and we’ll get through this too.
He’s Always Ready
Sometimes we’re just not ready, but He is.
From that first day of kindergarten to the last day of the place you love.
The first scary step into a new dream, or the death of an old one.
The last goodbye.
The first anything.
[ictt-tweet-inline]He is more than enough for those moments we feel inadequate to face. [/ictt-tweet-inline]
The next season that feels so huge, scary, undesirable even, you will get through.
So we do it scared. But we never do it alone.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you . . . for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” Isaiah 43: 2, 3
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Thank you Gina. You read my thoughts and spoke to my fears today. I don’t think I will ever be ready. But I will never be alone.