Eclipse

I left the dinner table, albeit a laid back affair of sandwiches and no mats; the silliness and noise were getting to me. Asked Cal in passing to assign clean up and I was leaving. I found an old biography of Queen Victoria, quite well-written I am finding, that my grandmother gave me on my fifteenth birthday out of my grandfather's library. I rediscovered it, not remembering ever to have had it, when I moved books last week. I shut the door, shutting out the laughter and foolishness of my kids (they're excited in having some out of town guests arrive for a week), and curled up on my bed to escape by reading until I fell asleep. And fall asleep I did. The biography was engaging, (I even got to page 101 before quitting last night) but I was so tired not even the noise and Cal's typing kept me awake. For once I would not manage the evening for the whole family. L'aissez faire.

Until Susan's piano exercises drilled me awake. I heard them, tried to ignore them, was pleased to realize I was not resenting them. But at last they won. I was fully awake. I lay there wondering what ever happened to blissful periods of hymn interpretation from her dreamier, less goal-oriented days? I prayed for her. Then I resumed my reading:

. . . When, after her first Council, she crossed the ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said, "And now, Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?" "You see, my dear, that it is so. " "Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour." For an hour she remained in solitude. Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order: her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent. The long years of waiting were over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation. She found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of confidence, of power. . . .For eighteen years, she said, this child had been the sole object of her existence, of her thoughts, her hopes, and now--no! she would not be comforted, she had lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy. Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the buffeting storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling and pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there nothing--a land of bleak desolation.
Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey, New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1921

Now I hope there are many dissimilarities between my raising of my seven children for the glory of God and the Duchess of Kent raising the Princess Alexandrina Victoria for the throne of England, chief of them being our chief end. Guided by scripture, my children are not the sole object of my existence, of my thoughts, my hopes. Yeah, they take a lot of time. They are my life, my life's work right now. Like Victoria's mother, I have chosen to shelter my children from the influences of the world, filling their lives with goodness as I know it, and watching over their activities closely. But the Object of my existence is That which also drives my thoughts, and both are centered around my only Hope in this life and the next. I shall not be desolate when my children take up their God-appointed sceptres to rule the kingdoms He shall give them. I shall have more time to pray for them, more time to read good biographies, more time for painting (if my eyes last. Typing this post is a chore for what my grandmother used to call "bleariness"), more time to serve God in other ways. Nor do I expect my children to cut me off so abruptly from their lives, as I hope that my counsel will always be based on biblical wisdom. But now I am reaching...

I had been thinking about my children getting past my domain, eclipsing me, so to speak, last night while listening to Susan practicing. I went to her room to talk to her about my thoughts. I was comforted to hear her godly motivations. She is still on the right track. God keep her there. Always, my children, Satan is going to be working his deception to derail you. And I will be keeping a keen lookout as long as you are providentially in my purview. But pray for me to believe in God's infinite Goodness. Perhaps then I will be more joyful and less worried.