50+ Musings

She’s officially a teenager. The baby, that is.
And more than ever, I’m realizing how quickly hellos turn into goodbyes.
Especially in parenting.
Sometimes I noticed.
Other times, it was as elusive as my breath on a crisp, fall evening.

I don’t remember the last time one of my girls got buckled into their seat in the grocery cart and I bought them a donut while I shopped.
Or when I handed them the final penny to ride Sandy the pony at Meijer.
When did I change the last poopy diaper or applaud them for going potty in the toilet?
And when did they get too big to carry piggyback or on my left hip?
I can’t recall when they served me the final gourmet meal of plastic peas and a rubber hamburger.
Or outgrew the princess costumes.
I don’t remember which home movie was their final production.
And what the sermon was about the last time they leaned against my shoulder, breathed long and went limp.

Last year on this day, my “little” and I drove 2 hours due north for our pre-puberty overnight adventure. And the grand finale, it’s now in the archives too.

I remember the first time I planned this exclusive trip.  I had no map.  My mama, bless her heart, her radar didn’t detect the storm called adolescence. She wasn’t tracking with my physical, emotional and relational turbulence. I wanted to be more intentional with my girls, offering GPS services toward destination “Womanhood”.
So I studied a curriculum, carefully selected an adorable little B and B an hour away, prayed with my husband and tucked an invitation partially under my daughter’s pillow.
She packed her suitcase, giddy with excitement.
That night, she and I ate dinner at a sit-down restaurant, nestled into plush terrycloth robes and watched a movie together eating soft, homemade cookies and drinking milk in wine glasses. The next morning we savored a gourmet breakfast on china listening to soft classical music.

Tucked in with the feminine pampering was an objective.
To prepare her for adolescence.
Our first lesson started with a puzzle in a Ziploc bag and 10 minutes to put it together.  She had no box cover and struggled.
The take away?  You’ll have better success navigating your teenage years with a guide and God provides one primarily through His Word and your parents. They’re your box cover.

The instructional CD’s we listened to warned her of the importance of choosing friends selectively and the dangers of peer pressure.

Another session detailed how her body would morph from girl to woman and how a boy physically transforms into a man.

I described the holy union of a man and his wife, explaining that any substitute is a cheap counterfeit according to God. “It’s a jump off a dangerous cliff,” I said, encouraging her to stay as far away from the edge as possible. Especially at 13.

This rite of passage was as unique each time as the child experiencing it.

Last fall, it was my baby’s turn. I knew it was time.  Just a few weeks before, she’d sobbed, “I can’t think of any exciting adventures for my dollyhouse family anymore.” Escaping to the innocence of imaginary play eludes as reality invades. And her mind and body are obviously in sync.

So I scheduled our special get-away. Instead of a B and B, I reserved a room at an indoor water park hotel because Lord knows this child has been gypped out of play time with Mama. I packed my trusty curriculum but when we arrived at the hotel, she was wildly excited to ride the waves instead, so I shelved it for later that night and threw on my swimsuit to join her. It’s exactly 57 steps up to the waterslide. We dragged our raft to the top and rode down double. Multiple times.

Tubing along the lazy river,  I was quietly conversing with God, words that only He could hear. “I’m insecure. My confidence is in the tank and I don’t know how to do this parenting thing right.”
Sigh.
“What  does this girl need from me to be ready for what’s next in her story?” I inquired reflectively. And the lull of the gentle current relaxed me, attuning me to hear God’s tender reassurance. “You’ve got this,” He whispered gently. “Instead of focusing on what’s next, why not celebrate what has been. After all, you can’t relive any chapter of your story and neither can she so you might as well delight in what you have today.” And I suddenly realized that one of the best ways to face the future is to recount the gifts of the past and savor the present.  And what better way to prepare for adolescence than to celebrate childhood with an outrageously fun play date.

So I climbed those 57 steps 28 more times and we competed at water basketball, and then the obstacle course. And after a chatty, chicken fingers dinner at the hotel restaurant in yoga pants and tshirts, we sat by a roaring fire in the lobby for storytime. Then, we went back to our room and remembered the goodness of God throughout her girlhood and anticipated adolescence with confidence that God can be trusted with that chapter too.

We rehearsed together a long list of friends and a bounty of shared memories.
I affirmed her good choices, her trustworthiness and resistance to peer pressure so far.
I let go of cautionary advice and allowed myself to wonder with her at God’s miraculous design for relationships, bodies, marriage and reproduction instead.
I chucked the curriculum and trusted my gut.

Younger me thought that parenting was more formulaic.  Sincere love multiplied by affirmation and open, honest communication added to enriching opportunities,  individualized educational plans, sound doctrine, disciplined training and protective warnings, that produces a healthy kid–physically, emotionally and spiritually.
To older me, it looks a lot more like a crapshoot.
You bring the very best cards you’ve got to play to the table and set them down with as much courage and confidence as you can muster. Then humbly and prayerfully, you trust that God knew what He was doing when he made you these kids mom, brokenness and all.
You pace yourself because this isn’t like a game of Spoons. It’s more like a Monopoly marathon where a single role of the dice can leave your broke and busted.
You take risks that extend beyond your comfort zone.
You own the ways you cheat and manipulate for a win and be the first one to apologize.
You pay close attention to each player’s turns and don’t miss strategic moves with your focus on your electronic device instead.

And mostly, you release to God all of the firsts, lasts and everything in between.
Then you watch with baited breath,
Resilient hope,
Childlike curiosity,
And steadfast confidence in His fresh mercies, new each morning to see what God will do.
In your story.
And in theirs.

It’s the leaves. They’re the harbinger of autumn and they’re already dotting my green lawn red. My girl, she picked one up last week and greeted it. “You’re not welcome here!” she stated matter of factly as she deposited it into the dumpster.

It’s not that we don’t love fall, we do. Both of us. I spent 13 years aching for the rhythm of northern seasons. Every September I’d decorate the inside of my house with colored leaves I bought at Michael’s and paper mache pumpkins I found at Hobby Lobby. I’d light apple scented candles and pretend.

But you can’t just conjur up the smell of a crisp, cold morning and the sight of misty fog hovering over the river or the taste of s’mores eaten by groups of sweatshirt clad teenagers at a bonfire. And there’s no simulation for meandering through an orchard and picking ripe apples off the tree.

Those lazy beach afternoons, they’re over.
And I wish I could stop everything from moving so fast.
Summer.
Our kids growing up.
My birthdays.

It feels like I just keep turning pages on the calendar.
The signs are everywhere.
The school bus squeals to a stop at the neighbor’s house promptly at 3.
The breeze carries the smoke of burning leaves wafting in through my kitchen window.
The first pumpkin cake of the year just came out of the oven.
The chrysanthemums, they’re ablaze outside my front door.
And as I type on my laptop, the Fall, it’s etched into my bulging veins and wrinkly fingers too.

I glance down at the computer screen. It went to sleep while I studied my hands and my customized slideshow starts flipping through the favorites in my digital photo album. There are a handful of people rotating through my visual story. The ones who’ve walked with me through decades of seasons.
In sunshine.
In rain.
In wind and storms.
And I wonder how many miles we’ve walked together….figuratively and in our tennis shoes.
And I wonder how my kid’s lives might be different now had these dear ones not been praying for them.
And I wonder if my marriage would’ve survived if they hadn’t listened long and offered commeraderie and accountability.
And I wonder who I would be without the faithful wounding and bandaging of my friends.
Who would we be without each other?

We are all getting older, moving through our life cycle.
Pictures don’t lie. At least mine don’t since I’m not tech savvy enough to edit them.
And it’s Autumn.
That awesomely glorious, precursor to winter, where everything goes dormant, lifeless, quiet and cold.
And I’m tempted to fight against it.

Then I remember my girl. The one who dumped the bright red leaf in the dumpster.
We drove together quiet to her first college class just the other day.
Then randomly, she commented, “I don’t want to go back to school.”
Silence.
She glanced my direction and added this little golden nugget.
“I suppose we should just embrace it.”
Silence again.
And like an afterthought, she threw in, “We spend so much time resisting things….”
And she’s right.
And this is the life lesson.
It’s such a waste to squander the mercies instead of counting them.

So in my own personal Autumn I’m choosing to
Be curious.
Sieze the day.
Savor the moments.
Seek peace.
Love lavishly.
Let go of injury.
And live grateful for the ones who are helping me write my story.
Because every season has its own beauty for those who have the eyes to see it.

To the north, the sky was breaking into color like someone unleased a three year old with a box of crayons, but to the south, clouds lay heavy across the skyline dark as charcoal, like Van Gogh painting during a bout of despair.

“Always face North,” that’s what I tell my girls, and even the weather backed me tonight.

We climbed the dune barefoot against the cold, squeaky sand. Part way up, tucked behind the beach grasses, we surprised a couple entangled in a hammock. And they surprised us. I expect we were the answer to some mother’s prayers in the mysterious sovereignty of God because they packed up and headed out while we laid out our blankets at the peak of the rise and scanned the horizon. The water reflected gray off the sky except for the stripes marking the sandbars. The seagulls scrounged for crumbs along the shore until a Labrador puppy chased them out into the Lake.

My “little” engineered stair steps up the dune with only her hands and her ingenuity, while my “bigger” girl and her kindred spirit, the one who came to us from down South, sat cross legged talking easy about everything and nothing all intermingled. We took a couple of selfies and I complained about my image so my girl, she picked some wildflowers growing rogue on branches in the sand and wove them into my hair.

“Mommers,” she commented endearingly “now you look like a teenager.” She spoke confidently, then picked up her iphone and snapped a series of pictures, mindful to avoid the angles that accentuate my double chin or feature my crooked teeth and minimize the creases that permanently mark my forehead.

As I contemplated the waves, I thought about my 50 years and countless trips to this beach. And the breakers, they just keep rolling in and pounding against the shore, every single time. They are unharnessable like the God who reveals Himself in the steady beat of their rhythm. And I am a spectator, watching His power and plan on display in the story of the water and in all of my stories.

The charcoal sky crept up on us as drops of rain began to fall steady, so we grabbed our blankets and trekked across the beach, down the path through the woods to the parking lot.  And I heard a song in my head, louder than the waves.

“From where I’m standing, Lord it’s so hard for me to see where this is going,
And where You’re leading me.
I wish I knew how all my fears and all my questions are gonna play out,
In a world I can’t control.

From where You’re standing, Lord, You see a grand design that You imagined when You breathed me into life.
And all the chaos comes together in Your hands like a masterpiece of Your picture perfect plan.

One day I’ll stand before You and look back on the life I’ve lived.
I can’t wait to enjoy the view and see how all the pieces fit. 

When I’m lost in the mystery, to You my future is a memory, ’cause You’re already there,
You’re already there.
Standing at the end of my life, waiting on the other side.
You’re already there. You’re already there.”
(Already There, Casting Crowns)

It’s just our first beach trip of the season and I can’t predict this summer either. It’s pure mystery, totally unharnessable, except for the assurance that His goodness and mercy are as inevitable as the waves lapping against the shore.