Transitions from far to nearer - from nearer to farther

I once heard a mother bemoan the fact that her married child was moving from the immediate community to a community a little more than an hour away.  I tried to feel sympathic recognizing that distance is truly a matter of comparison, relative to each family.  However, I couldn't help but smile a bit as I assured her that it would be all right but that changes are hard.

I remember saying goodbye to our daughter about five years ago as she left for France for 6 weeks!  I sobbed bitterly as we drove home from the airport certain that I would never see her again.  I lived those six weeks somewhat on the edge of sanity.  I can also remembering sobbing as we dropped our youngest son off for his first year of college, 15 hours away.  There was the weekend when he called, struggling.  I threatened to jump in the car and drive to Texas but the good sense of my husband held me back.

Now our daughter has lived overseas in China for four years.  Yes, we have had the opportunity to see her at least once a year and a couple of those years, lucky enough to see her twice!  She is transitioning from her life overseas back to this country!!!!  Yeah!  I have seldom felt completely cut off from her staying in contact via email and Skye.  It is only during her travel times that we are completely out of touch from each other.  I have learned to be content but am now ecstatic about her coming to settle within 5  to 6 hours of our home.

Our eldest son and his family, on the other hand, have been between 4 and 5 hours away for the past 5 years of his residency.  There have not always been frequent phone calls or contact but we always knew he was within a half of days drive.  Now he has finished that segment of his life and they are packed up and ready to move.  Moving to the east coast for a year of fellowship, their plan is to settle on the west coast in a year from now.  We smile knowing we'll adjust to frequent flyer miles but it isn't without a tug to our heart strings. 

When our youngest son graduated from high school and gave me the traditional "rose for mom", I whispered in his ear, "We gave you wings.  Now you can fly."  Maybe that's why he is 12 hours away! :)  I know that we were given the opportunity to have children only for a brief time.  (If you tell any mother of a toddler that, she will think I have dementia and have just forgotten).  But seriously, those years have rolled by so quickly!  They are no longer children needing our direction but rather adults with whom we can converse and even consult when we have a question!

So, it is with mixed feelings of sadness and joy, exaltation and lonesomeness, that we weave our way through these transitions from parenthood to ???? what shall we call it?  It is an opportunity for us to serve others as family in the Lord, to explore expanding our minds and lives for further service and appreciation. Interestingly enough, our devotions for this morning included the verses from Philippians 3:12b-14 "I pres on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended: but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.  I press toward to goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.