As I entered my 40s, I was struck with an urgency to figure out what life might be like after kids. I could sense that I was starting to enter a new chapter.
Zander set me back a few years, but soon we were out of diapers and bottles and bouncers. Soon, the kids won't need as much of me. Soon, perhaps a window will open into "what's next" I had quit my job and became a full-time homeschooling mom of 5. None of which had been on my life bingo card, but it was a spiritually transformative journey deep into the heart of love.
This year, Eddie is 16 and we're studying college level subjects. He's taking classes at the community college. Andrew is close on his heels and Philip not far behind that. I feel time passing and i feel change happening but not with the same urgency that i felt it a few years ago. Perhaps I've gained a little wisdom.
Back then it felt like i was edging towards gradation and people would show up at the party and ask "do you have a plan for your life?" I felt like i needed to do some deep discernment and chart a direction - professionally, spiritually, emotionally -- who am i now and where am i going?
But we are all becoming... day by day, week by week. Shaped by our decisions and priorities. Stuck with the voices in our heads who narrate our story and our identity as we roll through our routines and schedules.
When I was little, my parents loved reading a book called "the four little puppies" it was a golden book that followed four puppies through each of the four seasons. In each season, the puppies had fun, but as the weather changed "they couldn't play the same games anymore. "
I look around my family room. Building blocks and trains have been replaced with a piano and a drum set. The seasons are changing and my five puppies don't play the same games. the season is changing again... And yet, motherhood is still very demanding. I definitely haven't graduated ... and I'm not sure i ever will. But what does God have in store for me in this moment? In this season? What am I called to be - to them and to the broader world?
I was praying about Lent and felt called to a discipline of letting go of the life that was and reaching into the life I am being called into. My younger self would have interrupted this discipline as an assignment in scheduling and short term priorities. And it may include that. But i think more, it is a call to name who i have become and who i am becoming. To let go of parts of myself that no longer fit with who i am and allowing myself to embrace this season of middle age more deeply. I may also clean out a few closets.
Ashes on my forehead remind me that i was formed from dust. I was shaped in the womb and I've continued to be formed and transformed ever since.
A few months ago one of my dearest mentors passed away and a few nights ago her widow husband called me out of the blue to catch up. The call was a treasure. We talked about her and what life was like for her near the end. We talked about her life, her fire, our trips together (she founded a short term mission ministry and i traveled with her to several countries and worked in her offices as a teenager). We talked about her celebration of life and what it might be like to "know in full" in the arms of God. We talked about his life now, on his own after 68 years of marriage. Choices he's working through, adventures he is having. Joy and grief and what it feels like to be 91.
I met with the principal yesterday. Miles is growing into a newer, older, bigger body and facing new challenges at school. Since i was there, we talked about Zander in TK and Andrew in 8th grade. Philip and his adjustment to middle school.
We are all always becoming. We are all dust. Formed by the hand of God and transformed again and again as we journey through life.
Lent is a time to reflect on that. To find our way home back to the one who made us. Back to who we are in this moment and this season and to who the Maker is forming us to be.
If you haven't figured out a lenten practice yet, perhaps ask yourself what can i let go of so that i can better hear the voice of God or what can i step into that creates space for me to open my eyes to the work that God is doing in my life to form me in this season.
Whatever your Lent be...
May you find God.
May you find yourself.
May you allow yourself to be reformed in this new season of life.
