Changes

I got up this morning and pulled up my blinds like I do every morning. And my eyes fell to the same spot that they fall every time I am raising my blinds; the section of street right in front of our house. My heart dropped for a moment when I realized it wasn’t there. It has been there for so long it had become a fixture. I wasn’t even necessarily looking for it but I KNEW it was gone. My eyes welled up with tears and a sadness crept in. I went downstairs to put on some coffee and found David sitting on the couch. He had been up for a while. He didn’t say a word but I KNEW he was feeling the same thing I was feeling.

How can the absence of an old-green-beat-up-Volvo, normally parked in front of my house, send me to tears? I have been thinking about that missing car all day. I guess it was what left with the car that really causes the tears.

My oldest son left for Louisiana today in that old-green-beat-up-Volvo. Yes...that’s right...Louisiana. Far far away. He’s venturing off into a new chapter of his life, which means the chapter in my life changes as well. I wish these kids of mine would quit turning the pages! Every time a page turns my heart has to readjust a little. We are moving through the book way to fast! I know these things happen. I know it is normal. I know it is good. But for this momma it sure is sad.

All day I have been filled with thoughts of when he was an adorable baby, the cutest toddler, a young lad, and a persnickety, contrary teenager. I am remembering family vacations, all the countries we have been privileged to visit together, fights we’ve had, morning coffee times, conversations about history, God talks, and so much more. How can it be that I now have 2 children living on the other side of the continental United States?

In my reflection and pondering I must say that my heart is filled with gratitude. I think I have the best kids in the world. (Please note I did not say perfect or without problems.) I wouldn’t trade all the uncertainties, fights, trials, distresses, emotional meltdowns and heartache for one minute if it meant I couldn’t have them. They are a gift. They bring pain and they bring joy. They are worth it. They are my loves.

I told my boys the other day that the strangest thing happens when a child is born and placed in your arms. You all of a sudden experience a love that you’ve never experienced before. Where did it come from? How is it you would die in that very moment for someone you have just met? It is extraordinary.

The emotional day has led me to ponder the love of God. We are not perfect nor without problems and defects. Let’s face it, we are wrecks much of the time. Most of the time I feel like a liability to God. Certainly not an asset. And yet, “He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”

Really? Even though I am difficult, always need improving and never enough?

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

What about wayward children? Broken marriages? Debt? Addictions? Hopelessness?

“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Life may change but His love never changes.

Written by one of His loves,

Joy