One of the hardest parts of parenting is learning to let go. If you happen to be someone who prides herself on taking good care of the people she loves, maybe even to the point of micromanaging at times, this is even more difficult. The older my children got, the more I realized I was not in control. And I was not always keen on that.
Oh don’t get me wrong. When things were going well—when their friends were nice, they made the team, they were doing well in school, etc.—I didn’t really have a problem. But when things went wrong, when life was not turning out the way they had hoped, planned, and worked for, then I didn’t do so well. I wanted to help. I wanted to fix things.
Last year one of my children had an especially bad experience. This experience left my child emotionally crushed. Some of the behavior that followed worried me. Some of what the child said worried me. And there was nothing I could do other than be there for her.....and worry. But at one point, when I was feeling very low and very anxious, a dear friend of mine said to me, “God loves your children even more than you do.”
God loves your children even more then you do. I had to let that sink in a bit.
God loves my children even more than I do.
Well of course he does, I thought. But what does that mean?
It means he knows them better than me. He knows what is best for them. It means I need to trust him. If I couldn’t trust the one who had created this child, the one who had formed this child in my womb, the one who had given this child to our family, who could I trust?
So now, as I continue to let go, as I continue to try to figure out how to be a good mom as my children leave, as I worry about what might lie ahead, I hear my friend reassure me:
“God loves your children even more than you do.”
Ps. 139:14-18
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