Letting Go

Today we reserved a plane ticket for our 14 year old daughter to fly to Washington by herself this summer. I am super excited for her to have this opportunity! Special time with grandparents, an aunt and uncle and cousins, and the chance to make her own memories in the place that is host to so many of mine.

It is a first in so many ways.....

and a great opportunity for us to remember she belongs to God, and to offer her to Him..... again.

It is probably the first of many such letting go's. Mission trips. College. Someday, marriage. It is good practice. But it is still hard. She is my baby. My first born. My only girl.

But.....God has a plan for her, and I do not want to be clinging to her so tightly that His plan cannot fully blossom.

I keep remembering an experience my parents had when me and my sisters were all young teenagers. My dad went forward to pray at the altar after a sermon given by a visiting missionary. My mom sat in the pew silently praying as my dad wrestled in prayer at the altar. She thought perhaps he was feeling a call to missions, and she was trying to prepare herself for the possibility of moving far away. But later, he told her that he felt God directing him to let US, his daughters, go. To commit to not holding us back should God call us far away. It was hard for him, as a dad of girls, to offer us to God unreservedly, but he stayed at that altar until he could.

Thank you, dad.

Thank you for letting me go then. And thank you for the example that helps me let go now.

Thank you, mom.

Thank you for supporting dad, and trusting God to direct our family through him.

I am so glad my daughter will have special time with you this summer!