High School Mom

My oldest son is starting high school. The winds of change are blowing through our family and bringing with them an unfamiliar season. If you've been reading lately, you know I haven't been sleeping much. This new season is one of the main reasons for that. I know this now because he's the first thing on my mind when I awaken in the middle of the night, gripped with anxiety.

The idea is still sinking in. So, sometimes I say it over and over again. My son is going to high school. My son. Call me crazy, but it seems like I was just there not long ago. Not long after that, he was born into our hearts and lives... a little baby in my arms...a child who changed my life...who taught me that there were bigger things in this world than me...a child whose existence helped lead me to the saving knowledge of Jesus. How does this happen? Is it really time for the tumultuous roller coaster of high school?

They start out as these little babies, and they grow up to have those cute personalities while they explore the world as toddlers, then preschoolers, then they go to school and on it goes. It seems to parents like this will last forever. Forever we will have these little children. Forever daily family life will be absorbed by the pitter patter of little feet...by the sound of "Mama, I need your help" and "Daddy, let's play ball". Forever.

And then it happens. The realization that one day, those little feet will become big feet...REALLY big feet! One day, they will stop driving you crazy with "Mom, everyone's doing it" and "You just don't understand". One day, you will no longer be driving to the orthodontist, dentist, pediatrician, baseball practice, golf, the eye doctor, and meet the team night all in one day.

One day (very soon), he will drive himself to golf and baseball...and, yes...to high school. The next four years will fly by in a blur. I realized all of this while standing on the grounds of my own high school, listening to the band practice, watching the cheerleaders on the field, and listening to my son's coach mention his name to the newspaper writer. And it wasn't just my old high school anymore. It belonged to him as well. It was his time.

I knew that as sure as we were beginning a new season, an ending was also upon us. It is the hint of what is to come. He's now taking the first steps into the next four years, as the winds of change will swirl around him and all of us like a tornado...until the day when he steps out of this time and into adulthood. A lot will happen during the tornado years. I suppose it's that thought that brings me to my knees in prayer, and awakens me while it is yet dark.

Right now, it isn't my fears for tomorrow that I wish to dwell on, my regrets over missed opportunities, the yesterdays when his feet were still little, or the more recent battles we've waged as he fights the war of growing up. It's today. I want to hold on to today. To make it count...every moment of it. To soak it in. To enjoy him. To let him know that I'm always on his team, and that he'll always have a haven at home.

You know the song "I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles"...Well, I will drive it...sometimes in all in one day. And I will do it gladly. Because someday, very soon...it will all be over. A million times I've begged for peace and quiet or told them "Just a minute". Someday, there will be peace and quiet...loads of it...and more time than I could ever want. And the question that I am warding off in the middle of the night. The question waiting on the other side of tomorrow that I wish we would never come to is waiting for me. After all of the feeding, loving, sacrificing, gut-wrenching giving, boo-boo kissing, potty training, baseball watching, bible reading, wisdom imparting, disciplining, church go-ing, listening, advice giving, advice withholding, driving, cheering on, enduring, eye-rolling, "Watch your mouth" shouting, more driving, holding on, letting go. After all of that there will be just that one question remaining.

Now what?