Letting Go in the End

I am living these words right now…not in the same circumstance, of course…but in the same role as a mama, none-the-less. While I may have thought motherhood was a journey of keeping my children safe and secure, motherhood is more of a journey toward letting go. And in this moment of my son’s first week away at a new university, I’ve finally realized my usual posture of clutching and conforming and controlling is well past its expiration.

I am letting go. A counterintuitive act if I allow fear to call the shots.

I finally realized it the moment I found myself frantically looking up all the life-giving ways he could connect on campus and then worrying about him not seeking them out. Yep, this was me the week we moved him in.

I couldn’t help my initial response, because that’s who I’ve always been–making the most out of opportunities, especially when my kids are involved. But really, even before that. Back in my college experience. life was chock full of opportunities taken with vigor.

Uh… Yeah, I went there…”back in my day”….

My teens hate it when I do that. LOL.

But my thinking was challenged when I became the mom instead of the student while we set up his apartment. I thought back to what my mom had done with me. I went to “back in her day” and as much as I resisted that growing up, I am glad for “her day”…as a grown up now.

What I remember about my mom back then, is….

She moved me into my dorm.
She met my roommate.
She gave me a kiss.
And tearfully walked away.

That’s it.

She didn’t scour the campus catalog and suggest I take this kind of elective over the other…she didn’t seek out organizations and the “right” kind of campus ministry for me. My mom walked away and let all her years of mothering carry me along…without her.

“She held me lightly, lightly”. And she let me go figure it out. Always willing to offer advice and support, of course. But not holding my hand in a way that might have eventually had me run the other direction to find freedom out of some desperate measure.

This excerpt from Brandi Willis Schreiber on Mary’s restraint from controlling follows up with “How could she? She was not God.”

And while she was the Mother of God, she was still a mother. With a heart so filled up with the love for her Son and no doubt a fierce amount of self-control to resist not interfering with all that came at Him.

I am glad to learn from the mothers in my life. Not the ones who demand control in the name of fear…but the ones like my mom, like Mary, who relinquish their grip when the time has come.

Motherhood in the name of Love means letting go in the end, while trusting in a God who never lets go of our babies. Small and big.