Motherhood Is a Series of Letting Goes + Giveaway

Motherhood is a series of letting goes. 

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 Mother and child—our lives together begin with a fragile strand linking one human heart to another, buried deep. But there is a knowing. 

God places babies between our arms and beneath our hearts, and we cradle them safely there. We feel every movement, every stretch, every hiccup; it is sweet, this mystical, symbiotic relationship. As they draw life from us, the circle comes around, and we draw life from them. But soon the space binds, the nourishment wanes, and the letting go begins. 

After birth, we cradle them still between our arms and beneath our hearts, but now we must share them.

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Sharing is good, for joy is meant to be given away; it multiplies as the love grows. Fathers' arms cradle them. Grandmothers and grandfathers share a hug for the first time, and we realized that motherhood is a series of letting goes. 

As they learn to walk, they walk away from, not toward us, for our arms release them to explore new places and new people. But they always return, and we cradle them, sometimes only in sleep, because they are busy, busy. 

In quiet moments we whisper prayers over them, fold their little hands to pray, and tell stories of a giant-slaying, earth-shaking, miracle-working God as we watch their eyes widen at the thought of someone larger than those they see. 

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They begins to grasp and then believe in a Father even bigger, kinder, wiser, and more wonderful than their earthly fathers—one who holds them between his arms and beneath his heart. And we release their souls to him, trusting that he, in the fullness of time, will draw them to himself. 

Motherhood is a series of letting goes. 

For a while, everything they need to know, we know, but they are smart, and we are limited. Soon we guide them to other wise teachers, and we release them again. 

Motherhood is a series of letting goes. 

Then the day arrives when all that we have prayed for and pointed them toward is no longer on the horizon but is today. And we know, and they know, that it is time. The future has become the present, and to hold them any longer would be to hinder them. 

Motherhood is a series of letting goes. 

We hold them between our arms and beneath our hearts, and we whisper prayers over them to a giant-slaying, earth-shaking, miracle-working God. We remind them of their calling as image-bearers of Christ, to let their lights shine before men that they may see their good works and glorify their Father who is in heaven. 

And we commit them to God. 

They may drive away just as they have done other times. We know they’ll be back, but this time it is different. It’s not a weekend. It’s not a mission trip. It’s not a semester. It’s a life—a good life—one that we prayed for and anticipated. It is an exclamation point at the end of many mothering years. 

And we cry, 

because motherhood is a series of letting goes.

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