Sending Love

My oldest daughter has been working for Worthy for a year and half. She spent her entire senior year helping us in social media and our podcast. It was a joy to work alongside my daughter.  This weekend she went off to college. While our entire team will miss her weekly impact at Worthy, for this blog post, I’m just a mom living in the tension of what a sending love looks like. 

Surprise, it's harder and better than I thought it would be.

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She’s a grown up now, technically anyway. 

But it doesn’t feel that way as I say goodbye. 

The drive home doesn’t feel that way. 

It doesn’t feel like I left an adult. 

I drove away from my child. 

Like I cut off my right arm, and left it someplace where the rest of me couldn’t stay. 

Like something is missing. Like I’ve literally left a part of me.

And for some crazy reason, I did this intentionally. 

For her to grow.

Is there a word for this tension–this fate of leaving a part of you behind?

It’s both life and loss

It’s a grateful heart and a broken one. 

It’s hope and longing

It’s joy and suffering. 

It’s love and sacrifice. 

It’s the push when all I want to do is pull. 

The push is what I wanted to avoid for years.  

The tough conversations that were needed for her growth. 

The long talks about the truths of how the world works that confronted her innocence.  

The questions that have answers that didn’t seem sufficient enough for someone with such child-like wonder. 

The words of confidence when what I felt was uncertainty. 

The discipline and correction when silence felt safer. The ‘yes’ when what I really wanted to give was a ‘no.’But I couldn’t. 

They were so needed. 

All of those moments, those late night and throughout the day talks, did their job. Because there she goes.

Ready to confront the world with her holy innocence and questions, her child-like faith. 

As we walk away and I watch her courage grow, the thoughts flood. 

0-18 years in under a second. 

Will she be okay? 

Will she remember what we taught, modeled, and prayed? 

Will she forget all the ways we got it wrong?

Will she forgive us when she remembers? 

Will she go to Jesus? 

Will she obey Him?

Will she come back home? 

Will she lose herself? 

Will she find herself? 

Will she become who she was created to be? 

Will she do it all for His glory? 

There are so many unknowns. 

And only she will decide what she will do. 

And it’s only the Lord that can know ahead of time.  

In that reminder, suddenly and all at once, all those questions get wrapped up in His love. 

Like they have a thousand times in Him, the one who loved her first. The one who saw me in my unknowns, and gave me her.

He could’ve kept her for himself. 

But God is love. 

Gratitude wells up in tears of worship and praise. He is kind. 

This is the dance He and I have been doing in the wee hours of the morning for eighteen years. 

It’s where I have learned to practice the word for this kind of love: selfless

And in this invitation to love another selflessly, I give my “arm”, my heart, my daughter, my ways, my thoughts over to Him so that she will grow.  

I didn’t give her to the world, or to a University, or to adulthood.

Like I have so many mornings, I give her to Him–the God who created her. 

He is Life-36-5 for me.

His eyes are locked in on her better than any app. 

And my eyes are on Him. 

It means of course that I can’t control, curate, or manage all the circumstances for her. As if that was ever a good idea. 

But thanks to those wee hours with the Lord, we’ve been weaning ourselves out of that role for a while, her and I. 

She’s learned to get her legs underneath her. 

Learned to advocate for herself. Learned to ask for help. 

Learned to seek the Lord.

Learned to hear and obey His voice.  

Learned to love justice. 

Learned to make peace. 

Learned to love how He made her–beautifully, wonderfully. 

Learned to love others even when they don’t love her back. 

Learned to be selfless. 

She’s learned so much. 

She’s grown up. 

And maybe sending her off means I have too. 

Love is selfless. 

1 Corinthians 13:5 (MSG)

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere.

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. 

Love never gives up. 

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. 

Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.