“It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced,” my sister-in-law told me.
She was referring to the painful moment I will have to drop my oldest daughter off at college and then drive away.
It’s an inevitable lesson in “letting go” for which I’m striving to prepare my heart.
Will she take good care of herself? Will she get homesick? Who will watch out for her if she is struggling?
A million questions plague the mind of a mother who is trying to allow her child to take the necessary steps to becoming an adult.
Part of me wants to protect her from the world forever. Part of me knows I can’t. And part of me knows that if I tried, I would be limiting her from becoming the beautiful person God needs her to be.
He knows I need to let her go.
And He is merciful in giving me the time I need to prepare for it.
I will have had 18 years to prepare, after all.
Stages of letting go
From the moment our children are born, we are called to endure stages of letting them go: From the moment they take their first step, to riding a bike, to going to school, to making friends, to struggling with making their own choices, to going off to college, to discerning a religious vocation or getting married and having children of their own.
At every step we are called as parents to help them just enough in order for them to stand up on their own, with the grace of God.
We start with holding out two hands for them to clutch as they learn to walk, step by step.
Then we hold out one hand, then a finger, and then they are off running.
It’s the same with taking the training wheels off a bike or setting curfews, anything that allows them to try out new freedoms.
Each step forward for them is a step toward us letting them go.
But the more we let them go, the more they fill our hearts.
God fills our hearts
It’s the same with God.
As He watches us, His children, grow through stages of letting go, He fills our hearts more and more as we shed the things of this world and depend solely on Him.
Even if you are not a parent, life in general provides a series of lessons in letting go of the things of this world: material things we held important when we were young, money, prestige, jobs, ideas, dreams, problems of all kinds.
Through the natural progression of life, we have to learn to let go of loved ones who die, children who grow up, friendships that grow apart.
As we age, we recognize things we must let go that prevent us from coming closer to God: Unforgiveness, pride, anger, envy, things that cause us anxiety, sinful habits, situations that lead us into near occasions of sin.
Holding on
But in the midst of all this letting go, there must also be the recognition of the converse need to hold on to all things that bring us closer to God: Knowledge, love, goodness, gentleness, mercy, forgiveness, fortitude, prayer life, sacraments, morals, discipline, Truth, Church teaching.
Some things we cling to no matter what, because they fill our hearts with God, our only hope out of this world that is not our home.
“It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced,” I can imagine God saying as we go through the final letting go of this earthly life.
Indeed.
In this world of letting go, if we hold on to what brings us closer to Him and remain steadfast to the Truth He’s revealed to us through the ages, the fullness of Heaven — untouched by the brokenness of this world — awaits.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a teacher’s aide at St. John the Baptist School in Waunakee.