Letting Go...Part One?

As a women I can testify that we women generally have more control issues than our male counterparts. I think this goes all the way back to the fall of man...but in case you don't believe all that, then just examine yourself to see if its true. I can look back on my life and see many times when I went through a time of anxiety and it was mostly due to my trying to control life or other people and it/they not bending to my will. It's the human nature to want to control our fate or destiny. And to some extent we definitely are able to shape our futures. Make good decisions have a good future. Make bad decisions have a pretty rough future. However, sometimes you are going to find that no matter what you do, your decisions do not equal the reciprocated outcome and you realize: YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL.

Parenthood has been one of the main ways God has brought this home for me. I remember when Jeremiah and I were potty training our first child. We did everything wrong...Starting with our thinking processes. We thought we could put a child on a toilet and by saying "poop!" she would poop. Well, you can't make another person poop. Especially when the pressures on. Lesson learned! 

As parents we do our very best to keep our kids safe, protect them, love them, lead them on the straight and narrow. But sometimes you find that no matter what you do they get hurt or endangered, they end up feeling unloved or they make bad decisions. They are their own person. They grow up and go out into the world leaving you praying they got everything you were throwing at them all those years.

I saw all this to say this: as a mother, letting go of my kids has been especially hard this past year. You may be thinking, "Maria, your kids are so young". Yes, they are...My oldest is only 6. But its a mental thing and emotional...and spiritual. And it takes time. So (despite my best efforts to avoid it) I'm starting to let go now. 

Before I even given birth to our 4th daughter I had already begun grieving the ending of my birthing years....The precious baby years I've grown to adore. (Yes, that means we do not "plan" on having any more children by birth). For 7 years I've been pregnant or nursing and even though I know those things do not make my identity...They have become the only world I know.  I cannot remember what it was like to do not be doing these things. And now, as I wean my sweet Abaleen, I am trying to urge my heart to be at rest. Nurse her longer some may say...Have another baby others will say. But if I did those things they wouldn't because I truly want to nurse another child or be pregnant again or have another child. It would be with selfish motives because I couldn't bring myself to let go right now. And at some point, no matter how many kids I had, I would be right back to this place. Letting Go. 

(More on this in the next post...I think :)