Everybody Wants to Rule the World

The other night I was making dinner. All the ingredients for Buffalo Chicken Pizza were spread on our kitchen island. The oven was preheating and I was reading the recipe. I heard the boys tumble in the door and started my usual evening greeting: "Hey! I'm glad you're home! Do you have much homework? How was your day? Track practice good?" After some cursory answers, it became evident that I had forgotten some stuff. Allen was taking a shower and heading right back out to his "special friend's" house for taco night and games before making his way to the university pool to learn how to roll a kayak. Davis was headed to meet friends at Marley's for wing night. "They're already there, Mom," he said as he stood in the doorway, sweaty and tired from track practice. I had okayed all these plans the night before and wasn't really upset or irritated. Dinner would keep. So, off they went. Bobby wasn't home yet, but he would blow in then out too for one of his occasional evening meetings.

When Bobby arrived, I fed him a quick, leftover pimiento cheese sandwich and waved good-bye from the porch as his truck drove off into the night.

Then, I was alone.

I don't mind a night alone sometimes. I can watch sappy movies or too many episodes of Gilmore Girls without hearing sighs and complaints that my family would rather watch basketball. But, what I realized on this particular night is that this is going to happen more and more. This is going to become my norm at some point. Bobby and I are going to be standing on the porch holding each other, waving and saying, "Have fun storming the castle" more nights than not.

Then, our boys are going to be gone.

I know I'm not the first mom to struggle through this time and I won't be the last. I'm genuinely excited to see where my kids end up and what kind of men they become. But, I don't want to be the one perpetually left on the porch. Sometimes, I want to be the one “storming the castle”.

While I'm sad that part of my parenting life will be over in the blink of an eye, I know that I'll be a mom for forever. When I've thought and prayed about this time of change in the life of my family, my prayers have centered on my kids; where they'll go to school, what they'll major in, their friendships and who they'll marry. God reassures me again and again that He has good plans for them. He loves them so much more than I do and the future He has for my boys is really, really good.

But, I haven't thought much about what that means for me. What is my life going to look like, what am I supposed to be doing with my time, how am I going to cope with my kids leaving home?

Mother Teresa said, "If you want to change the world, go home and love your family."

So, I did. That's been my mission, my goal, my job, my life for the past 17 years. I've had some other "jobs" during that time, sous chef for a caterer, customer service for a computer business, but, my whole world has been loving my family.

When my boys were still babies we attended a church that hosted a week long missions conference each winter. Without fail, we would all get sick. So, Bobby and I would take turns attending worship services and dinners and dessert fellowships in an effort to soak up as much inspiration from the visiting missionaries as possible.

I remember attending one evening worship service alone. At the end of his message, the speaker directed our attention to the screen behind him where he played a scene from the movie, Mr. Holland's Opus. It was the dramatic ending, the culmination of Mr. Holland's work as a teacher. He walked into a crowded auditorium filled with current and former students. Then, he was handed a conductor's baton and cajoled into directing an orchestra in his “opus”. It was the symphony he thought he would be known and recognized for, but what really mattered, what shone through, was his commitment to the people he had taught and touched with his life, whether it turned out like he had planned or not.

That's when God spoke to me. No. He didn't just speak. He put His arm around me and leaned in. He whispered in my ear, "Allen and Davis are your opus."

Sweetly, surprisingly, God is whispering to me again. He's telling me that He has good plans for ME. There is life after kids go to college. He has stuff for me to do. He has a future and a plan for me. And it's good.

I can't say I'm always 100% on board with this new phase of my life. I often wish I could go back to when the boys were little just so I could soak it up again. I would love to feel chubby little arms hugging my neck and hear belly laughs that make me laugh too. Recently, I couldn't sleep while Allen was on a flight to Europe and I wept long and hard after watching a YouTube video about children growing up.

But...God. If He's taken the trouble to reveal that He has a plan just for me, there will be beauty in the sorrow, there will be good in the sad. How could there not be? 

Mr. Holland from popsugar.com

 While I'd like to have a glimpse of what my life will look like in 5 years, I'm so thankful, so excited to see what's next. I'm not hurrying it along, I'm just glad that God has chosen to speak again, to move in close and whisper, “I have a plan, Amy, and it's going to be good.”

I went home and I loved my family, but, have I changed the world? Only time will truly tell, but I can say this with certainty: This world of mine, of being a mom, the world filled up with a man who teases me and holds my hand, a curly haired kid who has gaps in his smile and a boy with a gleam in his eye and a sharp-witted comeback on his tongue, has changed me. Completely. I am a different woman because of the life I've lived with these guys.  And, thank goodness for that.

“Your greatest contribution to the kingdom of God may not be something you do, but someone you raise.”

Andy Stanley 

Here's the YouTube video that makes me cry:   https://youtu.be/clcNB_EUao8.  It's Nicole Nordeman,"Slow Down".  Don't say I didn't warn you!