Monday Morning Music Ministry

8-27-18

She’ll take the painting in the hallway, The one she did in junior high.
And that old lamp up in the attic, She’ll need some light to study by,
She’s had 18 years To get ready for this day,
She should be past the tears… She cries some anyway.

I usually trot this song and video out every year around back-to-school time. First, old as I am, manly-man I may be, I get a little pile of Kleenex ready. This song by Doug Rider and Matt Rollings, a chart record for Doug’s wife Suzy Bogguss, is not a gospel song… but it is spiritual.

“Spiritual” in the sense that family bonds are sacred. The lyrics are about a girl going off to college, and they can apply to children leaving home for camp the first time; or boarding school; or military college. I get misty-eyed, even when recalling my own children’s first solo runs to the grocery store…

Oh, letting go – There’s nothing in the way now,
There’s room enough to fly.
And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting
It’s never easy… letting go.

Moms and dads and children. There are bonds that should never be broken… sometimes, sadly, they seem to be broken… but in truth never can be broken. Spiritual? It’s biological too: Family relationships are intertwined with a weave that is so dense and complicated (thank God) that our affections become part of our DNA, just like freckles and buck teeth.

The passage of time, and the rites of passage, whether the years of rearing a family are harmonious or rocky, have the same “bottom line.” Parting or major “breaks” are seldom, if ever, welcome. Pieces of each of us part-and-break, too.

Mother sits down at the table, So many things she’d like to do.
Spend more time out in the garden, Now she can get those books read too,
She’s had 18 years To get ready for this day,
She should be past the tears… She cries some anyway.

A few years ago here I observed that in every family – once again, harmonious or rocky; large or small, nuclear or blended, single-parent or adoption situation – there is hubbub, and crowded moments… silly problems and the occasional real crisis… “major” homework assignments… disagreements with classmates… “first loves” that melt away; and first dates… driving tests and applying for college…

Applying for college??? Wasn’t it last week they could barely climb aboard the school bus? I remember saying in a rare moment of wisdom, that when you manage a family, the days crawl by – and the years fly by. How does that happen?

Oh, letting go – There’s nothing in the way now,
There’s room enough to fly.
And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting
It’s never easy… letting go.

The element that makes the tears sweet, or anyway less bitter, is the pride a parent feels when we do let go. It’s the way life is supposed to work. Spreading their wings. Yes, part of God’s plan, the Family unit that He ordained for His children.

You pray that the children will shed some tears, too, occasionally – but they’re off in their new lives now, busy. And the grandchildren… well, there is a season; turn, turn. Just make an accounting to God, and to your inner self, how you handled His most important assignment in your life, training those little birds to leave the nest.

But I won’t pretend, It’s never easy… letting go.

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Click: Letting Go