A few days before we flew back to the States to attend Sydney’s graduation, I read an article written for parents preparing to attend their children’s college graduations. In this article, the writer encouraged parents to put their phones and cameras down and try to savor the moment their child walks across the platform to receive their diploma.
I did just that.
When they called her name, my focus zeroed in on Sydney. I prayed a silent prayer that she wouldn’t trip and fall (this was her biggest fear, and I promised to pray). And I took it all in, that sweet inkling of time. I smiled. I clapped. I cheered in delight.
In fact, sitting here, less than a week since we landed back in South Africa, I am still savoring all the many moments of Sydney’s graduation, as well as all the precious minutes we spent with our family back in the States.
I find myself amazed—really amazed—at how our older children are thriving in life. When Sydney, Brooklyn, and Jackson were little, and we were in the trenches of hands-on parenting day in and day out, I had many moments of wondering if these kids were going to survive us. I imagine most parents wonder if they will survive parenting littles, but we, on the other hand, worried that we had already saddled our children with more baggage than they could ever carry by the ages of one, three, and five. As much as I had always dreamed of being a mother, it did not take me very long to realize that mothering was the hardest role on the planet, and I was not nearly as good at it as I thought I would be.
Despite our frailties and flaws, Joel and I rolled up our sleeves and worked hard to love, discipline, nurture, and cultivate deep and rich relationships with our children. Our humanness got the best of us many times, but the grace of God enabled us to continue pursuing the greatest calling of our lives: the ministry to our family.
And maybe, perchance, this is why Sydney, Brooklyn, and Jackson are becoming the kind of adults we hoped and dreamed they would be. Maybe it’s not about perfection, but the very humanness that we have wrestled with for the past almost twenty-three years. And most certainly, it is a testimony of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and grace to us through all of the ups, downs, and in-betweens of this parenting journey.
Sydney, Brooklyn, and Jackson have not yet reached the pinnacle of life achievement. And they have many more years of growth ahead. But I feel pretty confident in ascertaining that we have launched them well. Sydney is a full-fledged adult with a bright future ahead. She is a force to be reckoned with, with a heart of compassion. She is strength and warmth, conviction and grace. Brooklyn will be graduating from university and getting married this time next year. We’ve always said that every family needs a Brooklyn, and now she will be starting her own family. Elisha is a very blessed young man. Like her older sister, Brooklyn will do well in life.
And while Jackson just completed his first year of university, I see bottomless potential in that young man. His life is marked with challenge, and yet he does not balk at adversity but has learned to lean into it. He is an overcomer who continues to learn how to overcome. Joel and I watch in amazement and immense gratitude to God for the character we see developing in Jackson, forged through physical disability.
This is not to say that these three young adults have mastered life and will never make mistakes. For goodness sake, I’m fifty-two years old, and I’m still making mistakes! There will, no doubt, be experiences in their lives that will challenge their beliefs, their hopes, and their core values. Crises of faith come and go in and out of our lives for our entire lives. We never get to a point where we’ve figured it all out, and from experience (the hard-won, “I’ve lived long enough to know” experience), there will be many faith wrestling moments in their lives.
Because I know this, I never stop praying for them. Mothering them has taken on a different dimension.
And while our parenting role is shifting with our older children, this is not the time for us to rest on our laurels. Joel and I still have a child at home who is in the thick of grade school. Jasper is ten years old, and we are smack dab in the middle of high-stakes parenting. And I still find myself worrying if I’m going to mess him up. I question my parenting skills in the wee hours of the morning when I should be sleeping (per the instructions of every perimenopausal influencer on social media). I wonder—once again—if I’ve saddled Jasper with more baggage than he can manage.
I fret to obsession, and then I snap back into the reality that God is the same God who sustained me with our older children, and he will continue to equip me through Jasper’s most impressionable years. I can’t control the fact that Jasper’s life will always be unique in comparison to his older siblings, and the way I engage with him has taken a hard pivot due to the neurodiversity he brings into our home, and in all of this, I am learning to trust God in a new way as I continue on my own motherhood journey.
And that’s kind of what motherhood is, isn’t it? It’s a journey. The terrain changes, and it changes quickly. We are in a constant race with time to accomplish a million and one most important things with our children when they are young. Once we’ve conquered the mountain before us, another one greets us at the foothill. We hope we’ve imparted every last ounce of wisdom onto them before they leave us. We pray we haven’t left anything out, that our brains and bodies have squeezed our everything into their minds and hearts.
The journey never ends, but it does change. There are seasons when the physical demand will steal sleep, zap strength, and slap you with a perpetual runny nose, compliments of preschool and every play date they’ve ever had, ever. In other seasons, the battle with culture over your child’s soul will keep you on your knees in prayer. And in later seasons, you will wrestle with both the joy and the heartache of seeing your children leave home. I told Joel one time, as we were preparing to say goodbye to our older children, “This feels unnatural.” It still feels unnatural. I’m grateful that our nest is not empty yet.
When I was younger, I put a limit on the number of children we would have. Joel and I agreed on three. When I was forty-one, we were preparing for our fourth child. At fifty-two, I look back, and I wish we had had more. I wish we hadn’t felt constrained by cultural norms but had been more open to an unconventional life. Because parenting, while immensely challenging, has been the most beautiful part of my life. Being a wife and a mother has truly been the most cherished part of being human—aside from my identity in Christ—that I’ve ever had. Hard, emotional, sometimes painful, fun, exhausting, and refining, this journey has been a great teacher; one that I will be learning from for my entire life.
To all the young ones out there, keep having babies. Fill your quiver. Embrace the chaos. I wish we had.
I am grateful for a husband who partners with me in this journey. And I am also grateful—dare I say it—for all our imperfections. All these flaws, these quarks, these mess-ups, and head-shaking moments keep us aware of our shortcomings and dependent upon God. There is nothing more precious than traversing this landscape with someone who leans on God while holding your hand. I have that, and I am grateful for it.
Sydney graduated sixteen days ago. We were somewhere in the sky six days ago, on Mother’s Day. This entire week I’ve been fighting the brain fog of jet lag, and today I am deep in reflection. This Mother’s Day post is running behind, kind of like my life in general, but the heart is fully present.
The motherhood journey is a gift. And while those goodbyes feel unnatural (and most likely always will), the journey will continue. Even after I’m gone, my children will remember me. And I want them to remember me well. The legacy I leave with them will always hold greater weight than what any person in this whole wide world thinks of me. I want to travel this time and these pathways well. Even with all these human imperfections.
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