One clear September morning my son packed up his car and headed off to college.   Oh, I knew in my head that he was ready for the next stage of his journey.   Such a clear demonstration of maturity and wisdom is evident in almost any eighteen year old – what could possibly go wrong?!   I repeated like a mantra, “He’s responsible.  He’s good.  He’s wise.  He’ll be fine. I can trust him…. He’s responsible.  He’s good…” And I knew that he was.

But my heart, my mother-heart stared sadly at that rumbling car as he drove away.  He turned and waved at the corner.  I waved back and blew a kiss.   A deep melancholy overwhelmed me.  A chapter of mothering had just turned that corner with him.  Well, that is, it had always looked like a corner, up until now.  In the clarity of the early morning air, I felt a certain kinship with Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, when she proclaimed to her dog, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” That corner was not really a corner it was a precipice, a great abyss, a free fall into the great unknown.

I was now the mother of an adult son, and mothering would look differently than it had up to this point.

What happens now?

Questions, doubts, like balloons, floated between my heart and my head, vying for attention, squeezing aside trust, obstructing peace.   Had we prepared him for the journey ahead?  Was he equipped to withstand the hard knocks, to make wise decisions, to be responsible?  Was his faith strong enough to walk him through the difficult questions that the future would bring?  What did my new role look like?  A hundred and one questions collided inside my head.

And then, quietly a bubble of faith floated into the air before me.  I reached out and took hold of it.

“I will never leave him, nor forsake him.   For I know the plans I have for him, plans to prosper him and not to harm him, plans for a hope and a future.  When he asks for wisdom, I will give it to him.  I have given my angels charge over him.”  And softly, gently, peace and trust returned to my soul.  A calm assurance pushed aside the melancholy.  “I will instruct you, and teach you in the way that you should go.”

Our Father is a parent to so many adult children.  He would instruct me.  He would guide me.  This same God of peace would also carry my son as he steered towards the hazy precipice of the future.  Oh, I knew that he wouldn’t sail through life.  No one does.  I knew that he might drag his feet at the bottom of that chasm more than once.  But I also had the calm assurance that God would not allow him to get stuck in the mud at the bottom, but would carry him on angels wings to fulfill the plans and purposes for which he was created.

My reverie was broken by the sound of a familiar distant rumble.   I glanced towards the sound, and caught the sparkle of the sun, glinting off my son’s car for just a brief second before he slid out of sight.  I smiled.  I almost had a sense that my prayers, like balloons, were wafting silently upon the morning haze, across the hilltops and were lifting him, carrying him into the future.  He had not fallen off the precipice.  He was being carried.

We can’t see the road ahead.  But, we know the One who can!  It is this One that guides our journey; that carries us through the melee of life.   It is also this 0ne that is always within our reach, waiting for us to inhale His truth, His love, His presence.  As we inhale His Presence, He lifts us up above the fears and mysteries of the unknown, and fills us with peace, wisdom, guidance and trust.

I stood to my feet.  As I turned to go inside, I glanced once more at the hillside.  A quiet refrain soughed gently in the breeze.

I will lift up my eyes to the hills –

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the LORD,

Who made heaven and earth. 

The LORD is your keeper;

The LORD shall preserve you from all evil;

He shall preserve your soul.

The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in

From this time forth, and even forevermore.  

Psalm 121: 1, 2, 5a, 7, 8.  

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