Reservation for 5
I always knew that I wanted to be a mom. Even in kindergarten, I was the pretend mommy serving up the plastic spaghetti on plates to my “children” at the kitchen table during free-play time. Ironically, in real life, being a mom is inarguably the most challenging job that I have ever had— which is a particularly telling thing to say for a woman that has had a successful career, opened her own businesses, and served in various leadership roles in the church and in missions.
When God called us to full-time missions, our kids were teenagers. In the depths of my heart, the most difficult part of saying yes to overseas missions wasn’t selling all our possessions or even leaving our loved ones behind. It was the knowledge that in only a few short years, my teenagers would graduate from high school and likely go back to the USA for university. Without me. I was making a commitment that would inevitably separate me from my babies (humor me here, they will always be my babies). The thought of sending my children out of our home was enough to create a pit in the bottom of my stomach, I couldn’t fathom the thought of sending them across an ocean.
I wish I could say I was prepared for the day that I walked away from my baby girl as the trees swayed in the summer breeze on the front lawn of the campus at Asbury University. But I wasn’t. No matter how many times I rehearsed it, or how much of my husband’s logic I engaged, my mommy heart cracked deeper in direct correlation to the distance I traveled away from that campus. There was something that just felt so wrong and unnatural about leaving behind the human that had depended on me for nearly 20 years and flying five thousand miles away. I had prayed for and knew this child before anyone else on this earth. I treasured millions of moments with this child— even midnight feedings and orthodontic appointments, which only a mother can honestly say they treasure! And then it all comes down to the day where I walk away, believing that I have stewarded this privilege of parenting her to the best of my ability, and trust that God is faithful and has always loved her more than I do. I’m also in the moment, between gasping sobs and falling tears, gently reminded that He above all knows a little about sending His beloved son away. I know it all sounds rather dramatic, but let’s be real, a mother’s love is dramatic. It’s raw and it’s undone. But no matter how undone I feel, the one who knew her before I did, who called us to THIS place, who called her to THAT place, is still sovereign over all things. Even over my broken momma’s heart.
So, for the first time in many years, we make reservations for 4. We talk and giggle on FaceTime almost on the daily. We mourn the loss of one season and are beginning to embrace the beauty of the next chapter. And we all look forward to Christmas when we will celebrate being together again, all in the same house, in the same country, and making our dinner reservation for 5.
