A Christmas without a full nest...

My three kids {+1, my beautiful daughter-in-law, Krystal!} left-to-right: Chelsea, Krystal, Tommy and Tyler

As a Mother of three grown children, there is never a happier or more peaceful time for me than when my kids are all home and under one roof.  As they get further into their 20's, it happens less and less often.  It appears that it won't happen at all in the year 2013.  There is that "realist" part of me that has been expecting this and has already been mourning. But there has been that optimistic side that was holding on to the smallest glimmer of hope that something would work out, yet now feels broken and kind of panicked.  What will it even feel like to wake up in a house on Christmas morning and not have my kids all there?  It will be fine.  It will be different, and I will miss the one who's not there - but it WILL be fine. It will still be Christmas morning.  I will still get up and have breakfast with my family.  We will exchange presents.  We will spend our day together, reminisce about past Christmases.  More than anything, I will still celebrate the birth of my Savior.

There was a time that I thought I had to be in control of everything.  I had to know where everyone was {I thought it helped keep them safe somehow.}  But little by little I had to chip away at that need to always be in control.  As they went into adulthood, I had to trust that these kids that God so graciously entrusted me to carry in my womb and deliver into this world... to nurse in their first year of life and then raise into adults... somehow I had to see that God gave me those years to love them and pour into them.  Yet the time inevitably comes that as a Mother it is our job to step back and let what was poured into them find a way to the surface in their lives... in who they are, in who they choose to be.  They have to find their way, make their decisions, make their mistakes, deal with their hurts {although I reassure them I'm always right here for them!} and handle their own consequences.  I can celebrate their joys and triumphs, but even that is sometimes from the sidelines, as this is their time now - and they must find their own way.  

It is at this time in my life that I look at my own mother in a very different way.  Appreciate her in a way I never could have before.  There was no way before experiencing it myself that I could have understood.  I realize more the pain I put on her when I was younger, and it breaks my heart to know that there were many times I broke hers.  It wasn't that I even meant to... I was just too caught up in what was important to me, what I needed, how I saw things.  I was looking so much at my needs that I sometimes didn't even think of how it might impact that one person who loves me more than anyone else on this earth.  And while I am sorry for any pain I put on her, I am thankful.  I am thankful that she stood back and loved me anyway; that she had patience with me, knowing that I needed to learn these things.  She trusted that I would come back to her, that I would realize my deepest need for her in my life, and then we would move into a better relationship: Friendship. More than ever I can see how God teaches us so much about His great love for us through our relationship with our kids.

2013 has been a year of so many firsts.  A year of the most newness ever in my life.  And I will be thankful.  I will embrace even the hardest of the new, and know that I will come out stronger and better.  The greatest thing I have learned once again is that I don't have to be in control.  I just have to keep my eyes on the One who is: my heavenly Father.  He will never leave or forsake me, and He loves me with a love that is fierce and everlasting.  I won't ever be disappointed in Him.

Christmas morning of 2013 I plan to let my first thoughts when I awaken be thankfulness for what the day represents: the awesomeness that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to be born in a manger... knowing that He would die on the cross.  I will celebrate that with everything in me!  And while I will greatly miss those who I don't get to be with on that day {and I'm sure I will quietly shed some tears}, I will joyfully embrace those who are there with me.  It's going to be a very good Christmas! 

My children.... all through the years.  Through my enormous love for them I can understand a glimpse of how very much God loves me!