Over the last five years as we’ve emptied our nest and transitioned to just the two of us again, Dennis and I have made several promises to each other while talking about aging and the years ahead. They started out as just pieces of conversations about how we didn’t want to do this or become a certain way when we got old. It was similar to when we were pregnant with our first baby and we had conversations about how we’d never do this or that with our child.
So here we are looking into another future and making plans for how we want to live this new phase of life. These promises aren’t written in stone, but we’ve both voiced them enough times that they’re now a part of the way we think as we move forward.
We read this quote recently and thought it so appropriate we wanted to share it with you:
“We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He’s accomplished for us at the cross.” ~ C.J. Mahaney
I remember when I was in my twenties and went home to visit my folks for a special weekend. I was very excited - I was leaving two toddlers with my husband to go home for some rest and spoiling by mom and dad! Because I lived several states away, I didn’t get to see them very often. My mom and sister, who lived close to each other, picked me up at the airport for a long ride home. I was so excited to see them and full of news to share with them. However, what happened next left me a little deflated.
My sister climbed into the front seat while I sat in the back. She and my mom began to talk about local news and all the people they knew. I didn’t know the people they were talking about. I felt strangely left out of their companionship. I longed for them to ask me about me, about my kids, my life but for nearly an hour they talked about their news. I wondered if they even cared I’d come all the way home. Yes, I had a good “pity party.”
I’m sure neither of them realized what was happening. If they had known how I was feeling they would have apologized immediately. They loved me and would not have wanted to hurt my feelings in any way.
“These are times that try men’s souls” (Thomas Paine, 1776). And Jesus said in this world you will have trouble (John 16:33).
These past weeks we have seen trouble. We have been dealt an economic blow most of us were not expecting. And it is spreading around the globe threatening every nation. It seems impossible to lock out the incessant reports of bad news from the media. It seeps into our thinking and leads us to depression and discouragement. The result is often fear, panic, and inaction. We feel helpless under the assault of all that seems so bad. Our normal routine and expectations have been upset.
All of us feel these trying times. Dennis and I are watching investments fall, donations to FamilyLife drop dramatically, and are thinking hard about how and where to cut spending both personally and at work.
But do we forget in our fearful response to bad news that God is still in control? This has not caught Him by surprise. He knew it was coming just as He knows all that is yet to happen.
Our daughter Libby had her first baby a week and a half ago. She is so precious, so dependent, so innocent, so full of promise and joy - so new. I simply sit and hold her and gaze at her delicate hands and feet. I marvel at God’s creation and mercy. I think I could hold her for hours and be perfectly content!
When Libby and Mac brought her home from the hospital and had their very first night alone together, it was scary. They kept waking up to check on her. Was she swaddled properly? Did she need to burp? Had she nursed enough? Was she alright? Were they taking care of her in the best way?
The next morning they had a little worship service with her; just the three of them. Together they read Psalm 139, “You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too lofty for me to attain … All the days ordained for me are written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Tears flowed as they looked into her tiny face and stroked her delicate fingers. In this holy moment they gave her back to God. They knew they couldn’t protect her. They knew she belonged to Him first. It was a moment of receiving this incredible gift and then entrusting her back to her heavenly Father who loves her even more than these new parents can. It’s really too hard to take in—for any of us.
Susan and I just returned from being in Chicago with 6300+ women for the True Woman 08 conference. It was an amazing weekend with women attending from 48 states and even some from beyond our borders. We were challenged by John Piper, Joni Eareckson Tada, Karen Loritts, Mary Kassian, Janet Parshall, Nancy Leigh DeMoss and others.
Susan and I had the privilege of speaking twice to groups of over 350 empty nest, or soon to be empty nest, women. We were thrilled at the attendance and so very encouraged that these women want to use the rest of their lives for the kingdom of God. These women are not like so many who consider their life’s work finished when their children leave home. Nor are they planning to retire to the rocking chair on the porch. These were note-taking, affirmation giving, laughing women who, as it says in Proverbs, “smile at the future” because they know God and they know He is in control.
Here are a couple of quotes that are worth repeating and following:
“Women who stand when everything under them gives way have powerful theology.” - John Piper
My friend Mary Jane had several of us roaring with laughter as she said, “When our eldest son had been married for several years and had his first child, I was trying to be the parent/grandmother for the first time that didn’t interfere. Feeling like I was doing a pretty good job at that, I asked him, ‘How am I doing cutting the strings?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Mom you haven’t even taken the scissors out of the drawer yet!’” Boy, could we all identify with my friend and most likely many of our kids identified with her son!
We do want to let them go but it is oh, so hard. We think we know what’s best for them. It’s a habit we sharpened over the years. Plus, we know some of the scary things out there in the world. We’re old enough to have experienced many of them!
When our two sons were in college they came to us, along with two of their friends, with a proposal for a cross country bike trip—ocean to ocean. They had it all worked out from how to pay for it, to the route and safety precautions. “Mom and Dad, would you pray about this and then we’ll talk again?” they asked. Pray? I thought, no way. I just wanted to say NO!
When we’d been married about five years I decided I needed to spruce up the back door entrance to our little yellow post–WWII cottage with two pots of red geraniums. My mother had grown geraniums and lots of other plants and flowers in the years I was growing up and it seemed easy for her, so I made the assumption I could do it, too. I failed. In the thirty years since, I have yet to grow big, beautiful, healthy geraniums. I haven’t figured out why.
But I didn’t give up.
We moved out to the country around year eleven of our marriage journey. We inherited a blank canvas in our back yard and a very rough initial drawing in our front yard. It was bleak and ugly, and I’m not a fan of ugly. I like beauty. And so I began to weed and dig and move hundreds of rocks (our town is aptly named, Little Rock!) to find soil that would grow something blooming.
Today Dr. J.I. Packer preached at our church. A long time friend and mentor to us, Dr. Packer is 82 years old and has mentored two generations of Christian leaders as a professor of theology and author of wonderful books. Our church was packed with “30-somethings” hanging on every word. He preached from I Samuel 30:6, “But David found strength in the Lord his God.” It was a difficult time for David on every front–his own faults exposed, his family captured, his friends furious, his life in danger—But! We were reminded that David, in this bleak time, focused his thoughts on God. Yes, he was distressed; in fact he’d wept until he had no strength left to weep. But then, as Dr. Packer put it, “David quits following the lead of his feelings and starts to follow the lead of his faith. He begins to think.”
He suggested five things David might have thought about based on many of the Psalms which David himself wrote:
God’s sovereign control
His pardoning mercy
His loving care over others
All the times he had experienced God’s deliverance in the past
God’s many promises. As a result of this “thinking” he was strengthened by God and ready to lead again
I just received a note from a good friend who is reading our book. She wrote, “Read more of the book last night and am so glad I did. I really drank in the chapter on loneliness. Between ministry and life stages I was so comforted by what I was doing right, reaching out to new friends, enjoying my “time”, but I like the “why” best. It made me feel so NORMAL. Normal is a nice word to feel! Hooray!”
She is so right. It’s good to know that what we feel is normal. We are so prone to comparing our life experience with what we “think” someone else is feeling, making the assumption that the other person has it better.
Hasn’t that always been true for so many of us? When we were younger and had little kids it seemed to appear that other’s children were more well-behaved or cleaner or happier or whatever it was we valued and didn’t have.
One of the blessings of this empty nest season in life is a greater contentment in who I am and who God has made me. It doesn’t mean I’m always happy about my life and how I’m wired, but I have learned not to stress about it as much. I’m more comfortable in my own skin than I was years ago.
October 10