There are so many great photos popping up on social media with proud parents dropping their newly college/military/trade/work bound kids off into their next chapter.  We just dropped our second kid off to start her freshman year of college.  Like everyone else, we were proud of getting her there…finally….and filled with excitement to launch her off into this next stage of life. 

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

Psalm 127:3

And then we returned home.  As we walked past her bedroom door to our bedroom, we couldn’t help feelings of sadness.  I walked in and sat quietly on her neatly made bed.  Spent a few minutes looking around the room at all of the memories.  The pictures on the wall. The sports medals hung above her desk.  The musical snow globe sitting on her windowsill.  And of course, still some remnants of dirty laundry scattered around.  Thoughts float through my head of every stage of her life – from birth to the present – along with the realization that, going forward, there will be pieces of her daily life that I will no longer be intricately woven into. 

I have been so focused on getting her to where she was going, that now as I have time to sit and reflect, I feel the weight of such a heavy change. No photos of that on Facebook.  It is such a bitter sweet time.  We’ve done this once before, but it hit me differently this time.  Maybe because she is our only daughter, or maybe because half of my “crew” is now officially off, with the remaining two not far behind.  

It has left my husband and I looking at each other wondering what the new realities of our emptier nest will look like.  As a mostly stay-at-home mom, I also wonder what will be my new day-to-day over the next couple of years?  Yes I still have house chores, part-time work, and a parenting role, but my primary focus over the last twenty years has been four kids.  And just as my daughter is feeling a bit homesick at a new school, I’m also feeling homesick in the changes to our family.

As I whispered through my tears to my husband this morning, “I have such opposing emotions at the same time. I’m so happy for our kids, and I know this will all be okay, but I also feel so sad. I want to embrace this change alongside my kids, so what does that look like for me as their mom?  This is all I’ve known for the last two decades.”

Anybody else out there?  In this new season, how do we remain fruitful as our parenting role shifts?

Managing the tension of the joy found in seeing our kids into their adult lives and the sadness that surrounds the empty seats at the dinner table is heart-wrenching.

Here are a few tips that my husband and I find are paying off in this transition period, which for us, will last another three years!

1. Focus on the opportunities that God has for us in this new season of our life.  
2. Give daily gratitude to Him for the sheer volume of blessings found in having been a parent.  We’ve been given the opportunity to raise four human beings.  How blessed are we!
3. Look toward the next season in our legacy building.  For us, that will be building the space and atmosphere in our home that invites our kids and their new relationships to return here.  I want it to always be their soft landing place…a place for reprieve and renewal…and most of all, unconditional love. 
4. Begin to find a renewed sense of more time with your partner.  For so many years, my husband and I have been balancing a heavy load with raising kids and working.  How sweet it will be to return to some 1:1 time together. 

As I glanced over to my husband in the car yesterday coming home from drop off, we genuinely looked at each and could say “We did it.”  We will miss her, but we did it.  It is only him and I that know every little nuance about each of our kids.  It is only him and I that have seen it all since the day they entered the world . And, like every other parent, it is only him and I that know the work it took to get where we are today.  Sacrifice builds beauty.  And so, I choose to look at the beauty within the uncomfortable feelings surrounding this change.