Letting Go and Letting God

We just thoroughly enjoyed visits from our numbers two and three adult children, Emily and Austin. Our oldest, Mitchell, had to stay in America and work. From what I hear this is common after graduating from college, the freedom to travel becomes less than before.   It doesn’t seem to get any easier letting them go each time.

Emily is finishing school this month and then will head on to Thailand with the mission, Remember Nhu.  This is my daughter who easily slips in to being my right hand woman when she is home.  We accomplish amazing things together because she is such a hard worker and so willing to help me with my brain scheming ideas.  Over and over I kept reflecting on some parents’ comments as I was getting ready to go overseas with my husband 22 years ago.  So often we would hear the words, “My child could never go overseas to serve God because I can’t handle it.”  Oh, the temptation to tell my daughter that she needed to come and serve near me was on the tip of my tongue over and over.  We have similar needs as Thailand right here and we could use more workers.  But a still quiet voice kept saying, “You will bind your daughter from a great blessing if you hinder her from going.”  I would then remember a sermon I heard several years ago when a pastor compared parents who are unwilling to let their children go as missionaries to the Israelites who refused to go into the promised land when God had sent the 12 spies in to check out the land. They cried out, “Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword?  Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”  Numbers 14:2.  As a result of their rebellion, the Israelites ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years while their children watched them die off.   And so, with my blessings I took her to the airport to fly away on Wednesday Evening. 

My heart is grieving for all three of my adult children today. Lydia, Rod and I are having trouble keeping back the tears.   I believe I will see the boys, or should I call them men, in a year when I go back for Christmas next year for Austin’s surgery but I don’t know when I will see Emily again.  It is an unknown factor which only brings a need to increase my faith in my great big God.  I am not afraid of never seeing her again but I just would like a date of some kind and looking at scriptures, God doesn't give dates.