My wife has this fun tradition of taking a photo of our three children together, standing on our front porch, on the morning of the first day of each school year. A couple of months ago, she continued this tradition when it hit her (like a Mack truck) that our son was starting his “last” first day of school while living under our roof. In fact, this whole school year has been, and will continue to be, a year of these “lasts,” these final traditions and celebrations he will share with us before moving out and going on to college.
It’s a truly difficult, albeit rewarding part of parenting that I never considered when my children were younger. This business of letting go is not for the faint of heart. And yet that’s our most important job as parents: raising the next generation of responsible adults who have made their faith their own, who will in fact leave us (sad face), and who will carry the torch of Christianity to the next group of young people to follow them. I don’t want to let go of my children, but I do want them to be ready for that day when I must let them go. As we read in Proverbs 22:6, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” And as my adult children navigate life and grow older and older, I hope to echo the words of 3 John 1:4: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
Troy Burns