This week has been an emotional rollercoaster.

Mark and I dropped our two youngest boys off at church camp on Sunday afternoon. It’s their first time to go to camp and they were definitely nervous. After getting them settled, I got in the car and started crying. “Letting go is so hard,” I sobbed to Mark.

And then there’s the upcoming wedding. Evan and Julie have been setting up their new home, but Evan’s been living at home and Julie is living with her aunt and uncle in town. Evan called about 10:30 two nights ago and said, “Hey, I just want to let you know that I’m just going to stay here at the apartment tonight.” I responded, “Ok, thank you for letting us know.” But what I really wanted to say is, “Will you sleep here again? Did I miss getting to both celebrate and grieve the last night you slept at home before you got married?” Oh the challenges of motherhood!

Motherhood is one of the only jobs where your job is to work yourself out of a job! I seem to be doing alot of that lately.

But as I’ve learned with our oldest daughter Anne, the “letting go” process gives birth to the “friendship relationship” that you eventually want to have with your adult children. So along with the grief of something lost comes the celebration of something new.

My guess is that this is not lost on many of you. Some of you have children starting preschool or kindergarten and you are finding yourself sentimental. Some of you have children entering junior high, high school, or college for the first time and you are wavering between fear, grief, and excitement for your child. And others of you are doing what I’m doing…letting go only to have something new and beautiful develop before your very eyes.

Whatever you are experiencing right now, just remember to balance the grief with the celebration…because something new is developing before your very eyes!

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