Love v. sentimentality
I love my children.
I know the wisdom of God in cutting off a woman's childbearing by late middle age. The old joke is that if God gave a woman in her fifties another child, she'd be in danger of forgetting where she put him. As my children grow up and take more and more responsibility for themselves and the shared household, I am seeing the wisdom in the seasons of life. I'm just too decayed to do and think and plan and execute as well as I used to. Well, perhaps, there are compensations. Perhaps I do more by habit and more intuitively that I once had to think about. But there are certainly aging processes at work that are part of the Fall.
This morning Susan took Grace out before the rest of us were up to have breakfast at Atlanta Bread Company and talk about Grace's lessons. Susan is her official tutor. She even suggested to Grace that she could continue this relationship long after she has gone to St. Olaf if Grace inherits her AOL slot; Grace would send off her lessons for Susan's approval and get more assignments in return. (Last week when Susan reviewed Grace's [miserable] progress for January [while Susan was away], Grace shrugged off her failures with "I'm planning on being a professional Flunky". Susan has already made great strides in motivating Grace past her sin, even by such methods as stopping by CVS on the way home to buy a new assignment notebook.
I will miss Susan.
Yet I would not keep her home. I was reflecting for a moment how much harder the days are when I have everyone home, as much as I love my children and love to have them around me. As much as I love the whole-family dynamic we have. I was watching Susan and Grace sitting side by side during devotions this morning and remembered Marilee's comment yesterday when she saw their pictures that Grace was a mini-Susan. (Not hardly! Well, she is the musician, perhaps, and she looks like Susan. And may she one day be as beautiful spiritually as Susan. But two personalities are hardly more different!) And I thought how Susan was ten years Grace's senior, and how in ten years it would make little difference, but at the end of their lives, the gap would be significant again. I was thinking about the ten year span in Cal's childhood between the pairs of children in his family. I was trying to think of the maturity that actually comes with being ten years old. I thought of the pictures I've seen of Cal's older sisters still in the family circle, but only when he was about Grace's age. And I thought again of Susan leaving.
Thursdays this semester promise to be very productive. Only the four youngest children and I are home for the better part of the day. We work; we eat when we want to; I have the computer to myself. I love Cal and love to be with him, but then I'm focused on him or his needs (even to work). I love Susan and Kilby, and love to be with them. But they are learning and serving and growing up and I have much work to do with the last four. I thank the Lord that I have not as much work with the older ones anymore.
I love my children. But at the end of all these reflections this morning, it came to me that to want them always with me was little more than sentimentality. Love demands I train them well and let them go. It is the way God has designed it and how I see the wisdom and tender mercy of it.
I know the wisdom of God in cutting off a woman's childbearing by late middle age. The old joke is that if God gave a woman in her fifties another child, she'd be in danger of forgetting where she put him. As my children grow up and take more and more responsibility for themselves and the shared household, I am seeing the wisdom in the seasons of life. I'm just too decayed to do and think and plan and execute as well as I used to. Well, perhaps, there are compensations. Perhaps I do more by habit and more intuitively that I once had to think about. But there are certainly aging processes at work that are part of the Fall.
This morning Susan took Grace out before the rest of us were up to have breakfast at Atlanta Bread Company and talk about Grace's lessons. Susan is her official tutor. She even suggested to Grace that she could continue this relationship long after she has gone to St. Olaf if Grace inherits her AOL slot; Grace would send off her lessons for Susan's approval and get more assignments in return. (Last week when Susan reviewed Grace's [miserable] progress for January [while Susan was away], Grace shrugged off her failures with "I'm planning on being a professional Flunky". Susan has already made great strides in motivating Grace past her sin, even by such methods as stopping by CVS on the way home to buy a new assignment notebook.
I will miss Susan.
Yet I would not keep her home. I was reflecting for a moment how much harder the days are when I have everyone home, as much as I love my children and love to have them around me. As much as I love the whole-family dynamic we have. I was watching Susan and Grace sitting side by side during devotions this morning and remembered Marilee's comment yesterday when she saw their pictures that Grace was a mini-Susan. (Not hardly! Well, she is the musician, perhaps, and she looks like Susan. And may she one day be as beautiful spiritually as Susan. But two personalities are hardly more different!) And I thought how Susan was ten years Grace's senior, and how in ten years it would make little difference, but at the end of their lives, the gap would be significant again. I was thinking about the ten year span in Cal's childhood between the pairs of children in his family. I was trying to think of the maturity that actually comes with being ten years old. I thought of the pictures I've seen of Cal's older sisters still in the family circle, but only when he was about Grace's age. And I thought again of Susan leaving.
Thursdays this semester promise to be very productive. Only the four youngest children and I are home for the better part of the day. We work; we eat when we want to; I have the computer to myself. I love Cal and love to be with him, but then I'm focused on him or his needs (even to work). I love Susan and Kilby, and love to be with them. But they are learning and serving and growing up and I have much work to do with the last four. I thank the Lord that I have not as much work with the older ones anymore.
I love my children. But at the end of all these reflections this morning, it came to me that to want them always with me was little more than sentimentality. Love demands I train them well and let them go. It is the way God has designed it and how I see the wisdom and tender mercy of it.
posted by Compleat Mom at 11:09 AM
3 Comments:
Heh-heh... Grace's distance-tutoring idea is entirely original to her. Just for the record. :D
I love to read your blog. How I long for the wisdom and experience that you have! I love to come over on Sunday and watch you direct the work seemingly effortlessly. Everyone has their part to play and things run smoothly. (Except when little girls' feet get cold and they decide to warm some towels!!) I want to learn the art of homemaking that you have mastered.
It is so funny to be at the opposite end of the journey, with baby # 1 on the way. When he is 15, will he know how to do laundry? Will he love the Lord? Will he shirk work to read? I honestly would be secretly pleased if he loved books so much. So many thoughts overwhelm me. How can I do it?
Thanks for letting me peek into your thoughts.
How will you do it, Jordan? One contraction at a time. One diaper at a time. One meal at a time. One spanking at a time. And always with the Lord's Presence, the Lord's grace.
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