Many of us grow up with the expectation that having life tied up in a neat box with mostly predictable days is the normal way life should be lived. 

But then we experience sudden job loses, new babies, moves, ill parents, challenging relationships, unpredictable teens, and more. Life doesn’t seem to calm down or become stable. Instead it gets more complicated, more unpredictable. The reality is that we live more in transition than in stability and that is not what we anticipated! However, transition is the real norm. 

The empty nest is a big transition. It lasts longer than most transitions and is full of so many different factors. And the feelings with it change rapidly. One day we are ecstatic at the freedom and peace, the next we wonder who we are supposed to be now. 

The empty nest isn’t neat and tidy. It’s a bit like Jell-O--hard to get our hands around or to fit into a neat mold. And when we think we’ve “got it”, it begins to leak in some way. 

When we were younger we often lived with a “when--then” mentality: When I just get the kids potty trained; when I just get through the teen years; when I just get through the empty nest and have time ... But we’ve learned at each stage there will always be another then. It never ends. If we live with a when--then mentality we’ll miss out on the now. And God has much to teach us in the now.

I want to soak in the now. Yes, it’s usually turbulent and uncertain. But God is present. Often I fall back on the advice in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” I long to dwell more in the present and less in the fantasies of the future!