Image from Google

 
     I knew it was coming but I couldn’t stop it. It’s that pain every mother feels. That gut-wrenching, ripping,  tearing when one of her children is yanked out from her covering pinions.
     The culprit. Independence. A time to prove myself. A time to cut the apron strings, the hovering.
     The lure. Adventure. Excitement. Freedom.
     The reality. It takes more than just an age on a driver’s license. More than just a need to spread one’s own wings. More than just a lark.
     He placed the flyers, contracts, information sheets carefully in my hand. He said he wanted my opinion but he’d already made up his mind. Highlighted in yellow was the application fee, the security deposit, the hold fee. Above the yellow block was the rental cost.
     What happened to the talks we had just a few nights before? What happened to the list of things he wanted to accomplish before he moved out with a friend? Why rush into this? (I already knew that answer.)
     I stared at the computer screen, then glanced at the papers in front of me. Shoulders slumped. He saw me there and quietly sat in the chair behind me.
     “You’re not happy?” he questioned me. My body language spoke volumes.
     “What do you think about the apartments,” he continued before I had a chance to answer reasonably.
     How do you respond to a factual question that is wrought with emotional overtones? “Oh, I think it’s a great deal.”?
     I tried the accounting approach that would keep my raw feelings undercover.
     “Have you considered the utilities on top of rent? How will you afford your car insurance as well? Do you know for a fact that you will be getting that higher paying job? Did you ask about the lease and what would happen if you had to break it?” the gentle interrogation went on.
     “And what if you don’t get along with your friend after awhile? How will you handle that?” the tone became a little more incriminating. “How are you going to return to college in the fall with a full time job and other responsibilities?”
     His silence dropped the bomb. He was not going back to college in the fall. Maybe next spring.
     The exterior facade cracked. I could not hold back the figurative finger wagging any longer. I reminded him of his promises to return to school in the fall. Of the importance of a college degree and a career plan. Of his promises to wait until he was more stable financially. Of the wisdom his father had poured out the other night.
     He wanted to know why I was being so negative. I countered with a reasonable observation that I was being realistic.
     I stopped and looked at his face. He was trying so hard to be calm, to prove he had considered all these factors, to move in love into the next stage of life.
     My heart was racing, my head spinning, my stomach twisting in knot.
     But I knew. I knew I had to let him go. To let him go in love. To practice what I had just heard at Bible Study last night. “Abandonment (of my will and plans) to God is freedom.”
     I knew I had to trust the Lord to shelter him under His pinions.

     “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. …Trust in him at all times, O people; POUR OUT YOUR HEARTS TO HIM, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62:5,6,8 NIV

     Is God asking you to trust Him in a special way? To abandon all to Him because He loves you?