The Empty Nest

It started out innocently enough. I was 20 years old with an unmistakable urge to have a baby. I had married the love of my life just a few months before and moved to Germany to live as a military wife. I found myself far away from family and familiar places and surrounded by other young military couples and families. All with young children and babies – and more babies on the way. This, no doubt, propelled me into motherhood sooner than I might have been otherwise.

It was really all working out how I wanted it to, anyway. My dream as a newly minted young adult was to get married and have a couple of babies. So, it all seemed very natural and the way it was supposed to be.

Of course, as a lot of young mothers, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. The pain of childbirth is literally the easiest part. The tiny little human boy that came home with me from the hospital immediately took over my heart and soul. All he did was sleep and eat at first. I spent a lot of time just looking at him. I thought how in the world did I get the most perfect baby? Then the lack of sleep started to take over. I worried for months about how I was going to get this little bundle of cuteness to sleep through the night! I finally had to let him cry it out, and that was that.

Fast forward a couple of years and there was another little tiny human boy in the mix. Even though I had some experience now, I was still a very young adult with very little life experience. So, another baby was included as no big deal. Been there, done that. However, this one had the most exciting habit of crying every night for hours – otherwise known as colic. Life was certainly not “no big deal.” Since my husband was preparing to exit the military, we were staying at my parent’s house during this time. And my mother did what mothers do – she would take turns rocking the screaming baby at night, then get up and go to her full-time day job.

The handful of years that I had two babies/toddlers seemed longer at the time than they do in retrospect. Those were the days of very little adult conversation and the time period where my sense of identity was fully immersed into my children. I no longer was a young woman trying to figure out her life. I was mommy. Period.

The years through childhood, pre-teen, and teenager start to run together. The school supply shopping, keeping them in jeans and shoes, and managing their after-school snacks seemed like it would go on forever. Oh, there is a lot more to the story than just those things. But they were all every day, normal happenings in the lives of two growing boys. Some moments or days seemed extra hard or extra exciting at the time, but hind-sight has mellowed it all out into a pretty even keeled life.

One day I turned around and my boys were grown and gone.  Overnight, I was 43 with no kids in their bedrooms to check on. I could turn the lights off in their old bedrooms, but there was no switch to turn off my motherhood. How does that happen? And why is there no way to prepare for this?

Seven years later I am still asking these questions. I have still not found the switch for motherhood. I’m pretty sure there isn’t one. I still don’t feel prepared for the emptiness of my little nest. I miss my boys so deeply I can’t really truly express it. Now there are daughters-in-law and grandkids that I’m missing.

I am coming to this conclusion. As a mother I will always be thinking about my children and their families. They are my heart. Yes, I need to reclaim my “identity” in one sense, but in another I don’t want to change who I am. I am a mother; a blessed, proud mother of two beautiful adult men who have given me two beautiful daughters - and the cherry on top grandbabies. Yes, I cry because I miss them, but they are just tears of a mother’s love. My nest is empty, but my heart is fuller than ever.

Don't Be a Grasshopper

Numbers 13:33
21st Century King James Version

And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

The setting of this scripture is in the Old Testament story of some men of Israel taking a peek into Canaan to see what the lay of the land was.  The majority of them had this reaction to what appeared to be giants.

What strikes me here, is that the sentiment sounds so familiar.  As humans we tend to project our insecurities and assume what we think of ourselves is what others think of us.  Clearly, these men of Israel had this problem.  They saw themselves as small as grasshoppers compared to the sons of Anak, so they assumed that's what they looked like to these giant people.  

I see a couple of issues; they projected their own insecurities, and they forgot who they were. 

There are various reasons why one might have an insecurity or two (or more), we all have broken places, whether it be from traumas, life circumstances, or even our own actions or sins.  Regardless of the reasons, we can use these things against ourselves, feel bad about ourselves, and then try to hand them to other people to let them use them against us (aka projection).

Who were these men, anyway?  Were they not men of Israel?  God's chosen people?  Had God not already rescued them?  Had God not already set them free?  Had God not already provided everything they needed?  They let their insecurities blind them to who they actually were!

So, for you and me today - do we know who we are?  Are we letting our feelings of inadequacy and insecurity come between us and the God of our salvation?  Are we worried about how we might look to giants in our own lives?  

I propose we take a minute to remember who we are, who He is, and what He has already done.  The Children of Israel took a little more than a minute to figure this out, but Jesus says we can come to Him, we can find peace and rest in Him.  He does not see us as we see ourselves.  He sees chosen, value, worth, son, daughter - can you let Him project onto you?