Now what?

I should have known that this would be an emotional day. It's my Dad's 87th birthday. It is soon the three-year anniversary of my Mom's passing. Two people I knew died this past week. And, our youngest child, Nathan, left home. He's moving to Austin, Texas, to start his first job out of college.

Both Ellen and I were doing pretty good with him leaving until as we were saying our "good-byes" to Nathan out on the street, he looked up at the house and said, "Huh, I guess I won't ever live here again?"

Now what?

We have been at this parenting thing now for many, many years. It's kind of what we do. It's not all we've done, but it certainly was our primary focus for over 33+ years. We have literally built our whole life around the wonderful children God gave us. And now, our youngest one is gone. Oh, he'll be back for a few weekends between now and when he marries Arlene MacArthur in August, but essentially he's gone.

Now what?

I left the house to run an errand after Nathan drove away. On the radio they were playing the song, "Day One of the Rest of My Life." The lyrics speak of this day being the start of your future (no matter what happened before). Couldn't help but think of Nathan as I listened to it, but then I also began to think about Ellen and me. In a lot of ways this marks the first day of the rest of our lives, as well.

Now what?

Well, first things first. I want to publicly thank God for giving us these four children, and for the wonderful human beings they've all become. We could not be more blessed by Andy, Katie, Peter and Nathan. Our cup overflows with absolute joy when we consider all that God has done for us personally and for our children specifically over the past 33+ years. It is simply amazing! We wouldn't trade any of it for anything else in the whole world. So worth it! SO WORTH IT!

Second, there's always doubt that creeps in regarding "Did we do enough as their parents?" "Did we do too much as their parents?" And, sometimes as parents you can get bogged down by the "what ifs" and lost in the "if onlys" that come to mind. I just have to publicly declare at this juncture that we did what we thought was best for our children, we tried to live life with them having few regrets, and we now plan on trusting God for what's next for all of them. They belong to Him anyway - our job as parents was to love and protect them, provide for their needs until they could do so themselves, teach them the really important stuff in life (and hope they never forget it), and then trust that our heavenly Father will help them understand and navigate everything else they'll need for life. That He'll fill in all the gaps we missed and/or help them forget the mistakes we made.

Now what?

Well, Ellen and I are re-committing our lives to each other. We are really excited about the prospect of being able to primarily focus on our relationship now and for the rest of our lives. We are grateful to God that even after almost 35 years of marriage (plus four children, homeschooling for 19 years, paying for four college educations, and lots of other really challenging/rewarding stuff) we still love (and like!) each other. Praise God for that!

Now what?

Time will tell. But, here's a few broad ideas for how we want to live life going forward:

We want to pray more. We want to love more. We want to be engaged in the lives of others around us more. We want to do all we can to make a difference in other people's lives. We want to continually share the GRACE we've been given. We want to be joyful at all times. We want to give others hope. And finally, we want to be all that God has called us to be for the rest of our lives.

Now what? Stay tuned...