Today I had a personal breakthrough.
Normally when it’s time to leave any of my grandchildren I am an emotional mess. My sadness would cling to me for weeks. My poor husband learned to let me grieve the what could have beens and trust God to speak to me words of comfort. Everything in him wanted to help me, but he couldn’t. The waves of grief surrounding my broken heart were too big for human rescue. I needed God.
Today He broke through! As we huddled together with our daughter, son-in-love and four precious grandkiddos, in what our family calls “the group hug”, an amazing thing happened; there was only laughter—no tears.
But God.
Maybe it’s because we know the separation is only temporary. Lord willing, we will make more memories. But even if we don’t due to some unforeseen circumstance, this thing I know, we will have no regrets. We have shared our love and made memories that will last long after we are gone.
Maybe it’s because of the trauma our family has faced, making these goodbyes seem like gifts, not punishments.
And maybe, just maybe it’s because God is maturing me to trust Him with the things that are precious to me. I no longer hold tightly to those I love, but I hold tighter to God who holds them faithfully better than I ever could.
I remember getting on my knees one morning and desperately asking God to help me let go of my last child who was moving to Arkansas to start her new life as a Mrs…
“Dear God,
I humbly bow my knee in surrender to Your Lordship in my life. And I choose to worship You with joy, trusting in Your faithfulness to me and to them.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen”
It didn’t happen over night. I have prayed this prayer countless times in desperate moments. Times when the rising tide of my emotions attempted to take me out to sea.
But God.
He has been and will always be the anchor of my soul. I experienced a calm today as I walked out of my daughter’s front door. I expected stormy seas and instead found beautiful trade winds.
But God!
This is my 28th post in The Ultimate Blog Challenge to post everyday in November.
Write from the heart 
That’s fantastic, Debi!
I’m not good at goodbyes. Actually I’m terrible. I have this friend who moved back to Seattle (from Switzerland where she worked as an expat for a few years) who’s even worse. Every time we see each other and know we’ll have to part, we’re like “I’ll just say SEE YA and run, OK?”
I understand completely. I can’t imagine that amount of distance between us. It must be halfway around the world?
I totally understand! My son just went back to college this morning and I haven’t quite mastered the goodbye with him. I am so happy he is in college and doing well and he tells me a lot about his life so I am not left out. I just miss seeing him every day!
We have grands and great grands scattered all over the US. It’s not the same but so glad we have the internet and Zoom!
I can’t imagine how hard goodbyes would be if we didn’t have the Internet and smart phones. We live in an amazing generation for all the conveniences we have to make life better.