Releasing Arrows

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This week marks a major transition in our household. Not only are we preparing to dismantle our idyllic home here in the wee town by the North Sea to launch into the great unknown of a new chapter in South Asia, but we are also releasing two children from our family nest—one flying east to begin boarding school and the other going west to grow for a season under the mentorship of his uncle.

Even as I write a lump rises in my throat at the thought of it. These are my babies. How can I care for and protect them if they are on the other side of the world from me? These are my babies. Through all the terrifying transitions of our life of faith, the constancy of their presence under my sheltering arms has provided sweet security. I can’t count in how many different places my husband and I have met each other’s gaze over their sleeping heads and whispered to each other, “At least we still have them.”

Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
Psalm 127:3-5

But the point of parenthood has never been to have or to hold them. During one of the heated debates of our courtship, I remember laying out my vision for wanting loads of children (which, my wise husband-to-be pointed out, was a wild impracticality considering the pilgrim life we knew God was calling us to). Our children would be arrows, gifts from God for us to hold near for a time but for the purpose of preparing them to be shot out into the world. If we did our job well, they would one day be equipped to go places where we were not and to fight battles that we could not. Their presence and their work in the world would be an extension of our own, just as our presence and work in the world are an extension of God’s.

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.
Luke 1:46-49

While the Lord painfully blocked my ambitious dreams of a baker’s dozen, the longing, the waiting, the losing, and the miraculously gaining taught me to receive each of these gifts by faith. My heart found words in the prayers of Hannah, Elizabeth, and Mary, who overflowed with gratitude in the kindness of God to remember His promise to His daughters and grant them seed. The ability to bear children went from simply being a given to being a gift.

They may be leaving my home, but they are merely spreading out into His.

And then the realities of parenting kicked in. Toddler tantrums and teenaged silence rattled my confidence, leading to despair that these arrows would ever fly straight. In fact, they seemed more bent on piercing my heart than putting a dent in the darkness of the world around. At the end of another seemingly fruitless day of teaching, disciplining, nurturing, and downright pleading, I have often unloaded my bedtime discouragement to my husband. But his steady voice repeatedly calls me back from reacting in fear to raising these children in faith. They are God’s from start to finish. He entrusts them to us for the process but at the same time calls us to trust them to Him for the product.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 12:46-50

So now I find myself embarking on a new challenge of faith. Having received them by faith and raised them by faith, God is now leading me to release my children by faith. Far from the profound relief I imagined I would one day feel when they were finally ready to launch into the world, I find myself wanting to cling to them, selfishly unready to give up the joy of having them near and (dare I admit it?) the sense of worth that comes of their needing me. At a time when so much of my world is uncertain and in transition, I feel the urge to hold them back as a personal security measure. I could take comfort in the fact that I will always be their mother and that the time will come again when they fly home to me. But that misses the point.

When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
Luke 2:48-49

Like Mary with her Son, I need to remember who their real Father is. How quickly I forget and try to exert my rights over them as if they were my own! They belong to Him; of course they need to be about His business! They may be leaving my home, but they are merely spreading out into His.

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
John 19:26-27

Releasing my children is not a denial of their significance to me. Rather, it is an affirmation of my faith in our Father—faith that He who started a good work in them will be faithful to complete it, and faith that He who is doing His needed work in me will hold me to the finish.