He's the End

I haven't meant to be so absent, but have had two separate colds, a quick family getaway, a college tour, an Ecuador presentation, a Roman soldier day, Ash Wednesday and a lot of normal life in there! Whew. 

My big prayer for stepping away for the weekend was rest for Pastor Dad, and GOOD time with Lily and Sofie...between school, work, cheer and friends, it is SO hard to come by. He met me with walks on the beach with Lily, nights in the hot tub with Sofie, a Sunday off for Matt, and precious time with all the kids...SO needed and thankful.

Without fail, stepping away from daily life and running to where the land ends and the sea begins always puts everything in priority. At the end of the earth, we sit and think and see and remember that HE is the end. That He holds it. That HE is the one telling the waves where to stop. That His is on the throne. 

What I was NOT ready for was all the emotions that came with starting our college tour season. Like, I am NOT old enough, NOT ready, and yet here went my girl-number-one, looking like all the college students, asking questions, walking off...and I realized she's just about there! I groaned to Peggy that I can't be doing college tours AND a three year old, and she responded, "You're young. You'll be find." bahaha. I'm trying.

Another reality that hit me unexpected was just how much my life was shaped by losing mom my freshman year of college. Even as Lily chattered about decorating her dorm room or eating in the cafeteria, so many memories rushed back...and I felt this unexpected sense of my time with her being finished...finished, finished. College for me meant the end of life with my mom. Decorating the dorm room was with her the first time, and alone and just reeling the next several. College life was phone calls and care packages, and weekends taking everyone home for mom to cook...for a second...and then reeling after.  The end of of how and who our family had been. Huge holes of grief speckle that whole sweet four years and being back on a campus and watching mini-me walk the campus just brought back some of that ache, and the realization that subconsciously I keep thinking "off to college" means this is the END. 

and it's not. Not because He has promised me her college years. Or even that He has promised me tomorrow. Because He hasn't. 

But just that He's the end. 

My grief-experience pattern is NOT the reality. He's the reality.

He's the beginning and middle and end, and in HIM our days are. Lily is His, and wherever she goes and whatever she does and however much time I have and whether I can image a future for my kids college-on that I am IN or NOT...He's got it. His hands. I trust Him. His glory. Our good.

It was a sweet day and a healing day and I did cry most of the way home. I'm not ready. 

I don't know that William Carey will be the school...but I LOVE that all these last 14 years of reading every missionary biography out there to my children caught Lily's mission heart for a place founded on William Carey's abandoned life.