I’m in the final weeks, 17 days to be exact, from dropping off my oldest child to college. Among the Amazon delivery boxes, dorm room décor, piles of discarded clothes, and random school supplies, my mind wanders from finding the coziest bedding to make a shoebox-sized space feel like home, to which cold medicines she needs to take along, to the inevitable – that my daughter will be leaving our home.

“How are you doing?” is the most often asked question. I’m surprised I’m not a pool of tears yet, mostly because my heart is swelling with happiness for her. I have feelings of overwhelming love as I watch her grow in excitement for all the new adventures. I’m so proud of the difficult classes she took leading up to now, and her determination to understand when she initially didn’t grasp concepts. Her discipline and hard work culminated in getting into her top school. As I express gratitude for the opportunities she has in front of her, I pause, almost with a divine awareness that God is looking at her with an even deeper expression of excitement and joy. He sees the course laid out in front of her. He knows the giftings He has given her. My love for her is a fraction of His.

“As a mother comforts her child, so will I (God) comfort you” Isaiah 66:13a

I am comforted. I think of all the times my husband and I have joked that we wish children came with an instruction manual. From this vantage point, I see that we’ve relied on one, the Bible. It’s the same playbook on how to be a great parent, authored by the Ultimate Parent, God. As I replay her childhood in my mind, wondering if I had taught her all she knows for this next chapter in life, I realize how often His lessons were “in play”, which are most evident in our many long family meals. Our family has discussed many subjects over lengthy weekend breakfasts and weekday dinners. I don’t think there has been a topic off-limits. From very young ages to today as young adults, I can recall praying for friends fighting cancer, discussing death, the details of set-backs at our family business, tough topics like homosexuality, politics, sex, rock-and-roll, and current day hip-hop/rap lyrics, and of course, faith. These conversations and the ability to share each of our opinions have developed our children’s moral compasses, reinforced not cutting corners, and teaching good habits and behaviors with humility and empathy. The final takeaway to almost every conversation: how blessed we are to have God in our life. How grateful we are to be able to express our faith publicly (when we want to) and how loved we feel by the Lord.

My husband and I agreed to have family dinners together early in our marriage. It had been modeled to me at my Grandma Clem’s table, and to him at the hunting lodge. We desired a space that was safe and intimate, where tough conversations could be had, and where love would permeate. We weren’t surprised to learn creating space to talk and teach was commanded to the Israelites in their early exodus from Egypt.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

God loves us more than we can imagine. We are His treasured possessions, His chosen children. I know when I rely on Him, it is His unconditional love that overflows from me. So, when the days come, that I desperately miss my creative, crafting, chick-flick watching, and chatty daughter, I will relish how He created her perfectly to be our daughter and that His plan for her future is far better than anything I can dream up.

I will take these final days to create a new routine of being intentional together. Maybe it will be talking on a specific day of the week. Maybe it will be Facetime each Saturday morning. Maybe it will be texting often, like we do now. I know we will have a family fantasy football league and March Madness tourney to harass each other about over texts, but I’m also hoping to keep up doing Bible Studies or devotionals together, so that we remind each other of the Truth. One thing I have learned about faith is my soul craves time with the Lord. When I am intentional about prioritizing time with God each day, our relationship is deeper, and I am better equipped to hear from Him, speak His wisdom, and share His unconditional love. As a mom, my forever job is to point my children to their eternal Father.

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 1 John 4:16.

Have no fear, once she is tucked away in her dorm room and we are driving back home, I will be a pool of tears. Tears of excitement for where she will go and the people she will meet along the way, and also of sadness of not having her sitting at her “perch” daily at the kitchen counter. A school mom shared that at college drop-off, she hid a few letters with gift cards with each of her children. Notes of encouragement to be opened when they “felt homesick” and another when they “felt disappointed.” I will copy her idea for my daughter…and am overflowing with gratitude that God has done this for me too. In the same instruction manual He wrote for knowing Him, parenting, marriage, and many other topics, He wrote how He will never forget me, just like a loving parent will never forget their little child.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.” Isaiah 49:15-18

Please pray with me the blessing God gave to the Israelites in Numbers 6:22-27, and that I will frame and send with my children as they start their lives under new roofs: “The LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “‘“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.”’ “So they will put My name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” Amen.