I wrote this a few years ago when I had just taken my daughter to college for the second year. I just found out it was published last month. If you’re struggling with the empty next syndrome, or just miss your kids, I hope this encourages you.
You can read it here or below:
He’s Holding On, As I’m Letting Go
by Sherri Woodbridge
“For I know the plans
I have for you,’
declares the Lord,
‘plans to prosper
you and not to harm
you, plans to give
you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
Last year, about this time, I took my daughter over 1.000 miles away to college. It was about nine-thirty and the ceremonies for new students were just ending; it was time for me to get in the car and get going. I took her face in my hands, with tears in my eyes, and let her go, with this:
“The verse God gave me for you is Jeremiah 29:11… ‘He knows the plans He has for you – plans to prosper you and to give you hope and a future. Plans that you will not be harmed. Seek Him and you’ll find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart.’ And now, He has taught me that if I don’t let go, then He doesn’t have all of you. So, I’m letting go.” And after many hugs and tears, I left.
Trying to get out of Los Angeles afforded many distractions to the moment, but after about an hour or so, traffic died down and life was returning to a slower pace. I turned on the radio and a new release was playing on the Christian radio station.
And then the tears came full force.
“This is what it means,
to be held,
how it feels
when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.’
Now I knew that my daughter hadn’t been torn from me, but it felt like it. It felt like I was not going to survive. I felt like I had a huge, empty hole in my heart and I couldn’t breathe; an emptiness like I had never known. How could I let her go? She had become my best friend. And I just let her go?
And so I cried some more. On that dark and quiet stretch of highway there was really nothing else to do at one o’clock in the morning. I listened to more of the song in between sobs.
“This is what it means,
to be loved,
and to know
that the promise was
when everything fell,
We’d be held.”
And that’s when I knew I’d be okay.
God promised that in the dark times, He’d hold me and I knew he would because He always did. I drove on and cried some more anyhow. It’s a year later and I just drove my daughter back down to school again. We unloaded the car in less than half the time as last year. After a day and a half of unpacking boxes, Togo’s sandwiches, thrift stores and Targets, it was time for the dreaded good-bye.
I told her I’d continue to pray the same prayer for her that God had given me. We hugged and I let her go… again. I walked away and headed towards the car. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want her to see the tears streaming down my face that my sunglasses could no longer hide. I got on the highway, the same one as the year before. After getting past the congested areas, I turned the radio on.
‘This is what it means
to be held,
and to know
that the promise was
when everything fell,
We’d be held.’
I cried again.
This year, however, as I listened to that song again, so intricately planned by God to play right at that moment, I cried out of thankfulness to God. I cried because He has been so faithful and has always held me in the dark times of missing my ‘little girl.’ This year it was tears of joy that wet my cheeks. I have had the the privilege of seeing just how faithful God has truly been this past year.
He is there when we are lonely and alone. When we are down and discouraged. He is there fighting for us when it feels we have no fight left. He is there to hold us when everyone fails us; and everything around us falls. He is always there and if we believe that He is, then that must mean we are… always being held.
Sherri is a freelancer and novelist and lives in the Northwest. She’s a mother of three, pet owner of two, wife of one, and grandma to the greatest little toddler in the world.
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