All the Things: Letting Go

Dear Girl Mom,

It often seems that life is continuously revealing the need to let go. From the very first moment we lay eyes on our beautiful, tender, squealing infant daughters, we are spurred to encourage them in their growth and development. With each and every milestone comes a degree of having to release.

From letting go of those beloved moments of rocking them in our arms at night to literally releasing their hands and allowing them to take their first steps, we are practicing the art of letting go.

We hold them as they push the pedals forward to find balance and speed when learning to ride their bikes, and then we let go with hearts bursting with joy as they pedal their bikes completely on their own.

Before we know it, we are teaching them driving skills, only to let go and allow them to drive off all on their own. We blink, and we are releasing them into the great big world. All of it can leave moms filled with an array of vast emotions.

In an effort to uphold one another in this journey of letting go, it is our hope this post will bring abundant love, hope, and support to each of us as moms. Whatever season of motherhood we find ourselves in, may we remain united together in extending tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience to one another.

May we together find blessing in and through the journey.

Love,

Stacy and Nicole

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Milestone after Milestone

Most moms would feel that there is no other lesson in life that provides such an unique opportunity to grow in our faith than through parenting and motherhood. No doubt it is due to how letting go, and the coinciding celebration of milestones, can include vast realms of emotion such as excitement, joy, struggle, and yes, even grief.

Letting go is bittersweet. There is such sweetness in witnessing our young adult daughters stepping out into their fresh lives. Yet, in doing so, the realization dawns as to how this is new for everyone involved. Not only does this milestone bring young adulthood for our girls, but it opens up the reality of an empty nest for us as moms.

In raw humility, it's an honest reality to sit down and recognize how many of us just don’t yet know how to let go well, Nicole and Stacy included! Many times, we may find ourselves clinging to each of the lasts, such as when our daughters wrap up their senior year of high school. Or when our daughters are preparing to start driving. All of this leads down the path of considering what their last few years and moments of their high school career will look like, yet simultaneously finding ourselves in need of a tissue box as we realize how deeply we miss the days of big bows in our girls' hair! Or maybe it's the days of our girls crawling into our laps with their take-home readers, begging for us to read with them that we desperately long for.

Ultimately, there lies this tension of being eager to see what lies ahead for each of them, while equally being quite an anxious mess! It can become especially hard when we wrestle with questions such as:

• Did we do enough?

• Did we share and teach them all we could?

• Do they know what they need to know?

• Did we love them well?

In and through it all, the reality is that there are tears, hardships, and things we wish we could do all over again. Not only that, but we are left with the honest truth that we have no control over their free will.

We have no control over what may come their way as they step out to make their mark and live their lives in this world. This leads to the foundational truth of why we need, not only God and Jesus, but also each other.

As we consider God's amazing grace, we can rest in knowing that, as moms, we have sought to give our girls a firm foundation of love, faith, and a wealth of rich experiences. We can give praise and thanksgiving to Him for faithfully providing blessings in abundance. We can praise how Jesus was at the heart of it all and remain confident that we grabbed hold of each teachable moment to speak into our daughters with love and wisdom along the way.

Is it true: With each milestone comes the realization of having to let go a bit more?

Letting go can be filled with all the emotions: Joy, exuberance, disappointment, heartache, and just the downright struggle with the huge ball of emotions that comes with releasing our beloved daughters into the world.

All of it speaks to the changing of our roles as moms. We learn to transition from our role as director, per se, to becoming their advisor. While the temptation to control is one that may run fierce within many of us as moms, it can be a true learning curve to accept and let go of our ideal dreams for our daughters while accepting reality. Especially when the two can often be so drastically different.

No doubt many of us as moms, struggle with a drive to control. We want to encourage the ideal life we wish for our girls, yet what we may need to truly be doing is allowing them to write their personal stories. We may need to step into the role of being more of an active listener. We may need to release a need to teach, but step into a role of consulting, if we are invited to do so. After all, within our daughters' own personal gifts of life, it is wise for us to allow our role as mom to shift and transition, and to relinquish the temptation to control.

While we may wrestle with a view of the ideal life we want for our girls, no doubt always being free from suffering and pain, undoubtedly life will paint a differently path altogether. No doubt each of us dreamed of what our girls would be "when they grew up" and had pictures in our minds of how things would turn out. However, some of those things happened and some didn’t. Or, at the very least, many of them not in the way we had imagined. While it’s not all bad things, things undoubtedly turned out different than we would have planned.

One example is how Covid messed up the perfect high school experience for many of our daughters. Activities were canceled, sports came to a halt, and clubs quit meeting. Then there was just an overall period of blah where no one seemed to have the momentum to jump back into things.

Instead of looking back at their high school years with fond memories as we had all hoped, our daughters have expressed the desire to "just move on.”

Despite all our efforts, we could have never controlled the pandemic and the effect it was having on our families and daughters! What a shock! (Sarcasm noted.)

One thing we have learned, and wished we had known when they were little, was how important it would be to hold loosely to the plans we had for them. Truth be told, we have had to learn how to be more open-handed in order to allow God’s plans for our daughters to unfold. Had we been less controlling and more open-handed, we very well may have saved ourselves from a lot of heartache and internal struggle.

Another thing we’ve learned is to heed this wisdom shared by Darci Larrarte, M.A., LPC at Haven Lighthouse Counseling: “Don’t pull rosebuds apart to make them bloom.”

This is such a good reminder that, we as their moms, are simply tending the bush.

It’s God who actually helps them bloom to their greatest potential. However, the challenge lies in when to know, and then how to begin shifting, our roles throughout the various stages of growth and development.

How do you know when you’re supposed to simply lend advice versus telling them how or what to do in a situation? Goodness knows that we often find ourselves learning how to just keep our mouths shut and wrestle if that is even the right or wrong action to take!

Top Five Truths to Help in Letting Go

The big question at stake is: How can we prepare our hearts to begin letting go of our girls in such a way that honors the plans God has for their lives?

Yet, at the same time we are asking ourselves: How do we do this while balancing the very real maternal instinct to guide, protect, and direct for the next umpteen years!?

Here are some thoughts to help guide each of us in finding the answers to those questions:

1. Exercise faith: As adolescents growing into young adults, allow them the grace and freedom to live out and write their own stories.

• This might mean allowing them to make mistakes. In childhood, it can be so hard to watch our children fall and skin their knees. No doubt, we were always quick to be there to provide the hug, wipe the tears, and provide all the bandages they needed! However, in young adulthood, with the stakes being higher and mistakes feeling much graver, we should consider approaching the circumstance and our daughters in much the same way as the skinned knee: with the hug, holding them through the tears, and providing love through it all. We may or may not be able to provide the bandages right away, but we can provide a gracious listening ear. We can provide guidance as conversation unfolds and lean on the power of the Holy Spirit for sharing any words that need to be spoken or remain unspoken. After all, bruised hearts and minds also require love and care, which is where we step in, no matter how old our girls are.

• All in all, we are wise to remember how our God is faithful and powerful---these are His characteristics and attributes past, present, future, and forever.

2. Exercise faith: Become their coach or advisor:

• As previously shared, it is invaluable to learn how to transition from our previous role as director to becoming their advisor. Never before have our young adult daughters needed more encouragement, support, and a soft place to land. They still need us to cheer for them, and indeed, pray over and for them. However, the continued reminder of always having a loving place to call home and how each and every one of us make mistakes are incredibly valuable words to continue voicing over our daughters. As moms, growing in our faith and the practice of relying on God may come more to life as it never has before in this parenting journey.

3. Exercise faith: Trust that you, as their beloved Mom, laid a good foundation and have loved them well.

• Don't second-guess or belittle the truth that you have been the best mom you have known to be every step of the way. You did your best, always, with what knowledge or resources were available to you. Don't allow the devil to gain a foothold (Ephesians 4:27) and tell you otherwise! Be wise to listen to our loving Lord's truth and combat the lies Satan will inevitably throw your way. After all, Satan is very crafty and knows exactly how to hit our most vulnerable places. Those lies of I didn’t do enough, or I did too much overparenting, become a vicious cycle that can be so easy to get stuck in. They can be so believable in the moment, yet are lies that Satan uses to distract us from the truth God has for us. Combat these lies with God's truth from His Word in the Bible and turning all doubts and fears into words of prayer to our God who hears (1 Peter 5:7).

4. Exercise faith: Allow God to shape, mold, reinvent you, just as He is busy doing within and for your daughter.

• Extend grace to yourself, momma, as you transition and learn how it isn't you that can decide or manage your daughter's future. Each of us has to allow God to do the work in them, and that means if we are constantly intervening or forcing growth, it doesn’t allow room for God to work in their lives.

• Listen in prayer and trust God to show you the next steps for what life may look like for you as an "empty nest" mom. Then, step forward in faith. Creating time for new projects or rekindling former passions may be just what God has for you in this new season of livelihood. After all, we will always be mothers; it's just our roles that morph and change through the seasons! Take hold of God's extended hand and see where He might be leading you during this new season of motherhood.

5. Exercise faith: Trust God's promise that He is busy completing the good work He started within each of us (Philippians 1:6)

• Invite Jesus into this very moment. Ground yourself in Scripture, keeping Jesus close, and allow Him to deliver you from any trials, emotional or circumstantial.

• Recount how we can offer opinions and observations but provide her the room for allowing her to use those as tools to help her make her own decisions. She needs room to trust God for herself and witness Him helping her work through her problems instead of us. Expressing how “this is ours to brainstorm, but yours to decide" puts control in our daughters' laps and releases us as moms from a controlling perspective.

• Make peace with the likelihood that our daughters will fail in some way. We are wise to imagine this and make peace with it, giving it to God every step of the way. When our daughters choose to make a decision that we may not agree with, thus walking down a path that we can see may not be the best for them, that’s when we need to remember God’s promises like never before and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We are wise to be grounded in Scripture, continually pray, and surround ourselves with women He has put into our lives for just a time as this, trusting God for wisdom and solutions.

Almighty Father and Lord Jesus,

Abide with each of us as moms as we navigate all seasons of parenting. May the continued journey of letting go be an opportunity to embrace Your everlasting promises and live out our faith while in the midst of transition and change. May we be upheld in your vast love and grace.

Amen.