Faith | How do I let go and still hold onto faith? One mother knows
“How do I let go?” I thought to myself in the week before my son was due to start his first year in college.
A phrase from the song “Once In a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads had been rattling around in my head for days: “Well how did I get here?” followed quickly by every mothers’ advice that was part joke and part prophesy: “Enjoy them while they’re still at home—it all goes by so fast!”
My husband and I had our lives completely changed from the moment we first found out we were pregnant. After two years of dealing with infertility issues the confirmation that we were finally going to be parents seemed like nothing short of a miracle.
Soon our lives were all about painting our house, planning our nursery, and baby proofing everything. There was not an action or thought throughout all the days, weeks, months or years that our child was not a part of.
And yet, here we stood, getting ready to say goodbye in just one more week—not to meet face to face again until Thanksgiving. College was the best of all places for him as he started his first steps into the adult world—but still, the question begged ...“How do I let go?”
Isn’t it ironic that the very impulse we have as parents to instinctively protect our children is the very impulse we must slowly, and carefully, let go of so that our children can grow and become the people that God would have them be?
The process of parenting is a constant stream of moments asking us to let go—to have faith—faith in them as growing, evolving people, and faith in a loving God’s plan for them.
God teaches us, as parents, so gracefully with all those small letting go moments: guiding his little body as we let go so he can take those first baby steps; letting go of his hand as he enters the classroom for the first time; letting go of the bike as he finds his balance to peddle solo; letting go of the keys when he takes the car out on his own.
For every step toward independence our children take, we cheer, congratulate, applaud and rejoice.
However, with every new milestone, I feel a tiny trace of sadness knowing that life will never be quite what it was before that subtle letting go. It’s a moment now trapped in a picture or a video, encapsulated in time.
It’s in these moments that I find I’m the one in need of spiritual mothering as I reach out for consolation from Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Mary wears many faces that artists have given vision to over the centuries: Mary as the young mother holding her babe; Mary and Joseph both scolding Jesus in the synagogue after they believed him lost for three days; the wrenching image of Mary holding the body of her crucified son to her heart; Mary beholding the splendor of Christ Jesus, her son, in heaven.
Through the dramatic narrative that is Mary’s journey through motherhood, I know that there is no joy, no sorrow that she does not understand. It is there that I find my faith in God, deepened as I once again let go.
Heather Ruane is a member of Christ the King Church in Richland. Questions and comments should be directed to editor Lucy Luginbill in care of the Herald newsroom, 4253 W. 24th Avenue, Kennewick, WA 99338. Or email lluginbill@tricityherald.com.
