(release)

Tomorrow, my son will step into a public high school as a student for the first time.

Yikes.

Next Monday, my daughter will have the first day of her senior year.

Double yikes.

Letting go is not easy. Especially for this homeschool mom. I am no Hannah.

I do trust God. Truly. And I do believe that He has both of my children in His hands.

But just this morning, my daughter told me of two very hurtful incidents by the hands of ex-friends. My son expressed nervous worry over potential bullying.

I can no longer protect them.

This is a helpless feeling, this sending them off to collide with brutal life.

Is this where ownership and stewardship are made apparent? The fact that God has not so much given me my children as He has allowed me to raise them and influence them and then He sends them into the world as His ambassadors.

What no one tells you when you become a mother is that it breaks your heart.

When I had my children, I finally learned to love. But the whole "when you love someone, let them go" thing seemed a little overrated. Raise and release seems like wildlife.

I wish my children did not have to experience pain, hurt, betrayal, failure. I would shield them from it all, bear it for them. In a heartbeat.

But I can't.

And it's not about me.

It's about them growing up. Up and away.

I pray that as they try their wings, fall and stumble and try again, that they will always know the nest is not too far away.

And that they would know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God has them.

Tomorrow and forever.