Mixed emotions rule this time of year. Parents of five- and six-year-olds know their little ones are not so little anymore. You are glad they are growing up, but somehow elementary school has come sooner than you had hoped.
Delight and anxiety merge for youngsters. Children enjoy the adventure of learning and their growing sense of self, but you secretly suspect (hope?) they would trade it all for one more preschool day, especially for those with the luxury of spending early days with a parent or other trusted, beloved adult at home. Add to the mix of emotions the pressures on schools to keep children and staff safe today in ways those of my and earlier generations never faced, and heading off to school begins to feel more like a leap of faith.
College students on the traditional immediately-after-high-school path and their parents face similar emotions, with the added complexity that comes from the natural inner pull of students for independence and parents ready but not ready for it to be so. Time to be your own person, make your own decisions, work out your consequences, dig deep and thrive. Time for Mom and/or Dad and/or Significant Adult who raised you to hit the road—or so you think.
Students on paths sometimes called non-traditional often find themselves in a web of expectations and concerns that include raising families, caring for aging parents, financial pressures, job pressures and more. You may find new worlds opening for you as you push forward in learning. At the same time, you know that hopes and dreams for better futures need partnerships with the proverbial village to come true.
To feel this way means one thing: you are normal. Hang in there. Keep going. God walks with you at every age and stage.
God knows how big the world is and how intimate our hopes and dreams for ourselves and those we love.
God knows there will be times ahead to celebrate and times needing forgiveness – including learning to forgive ourselves. too.
Growing up and into the person we each have been called to be takes both the freedom that comes in accepting and trusting the grace-full reality of God's love for each of us – and the discipline to put to work the gifts and talents God has given us that we might flourish and make a difference in the world.
And remember: If you think you have splendid hopes and dreams for yourself and/or your children, just imagine the dreams God has in store for us/them as we/they learn and grow. God went so far as to create a universe to challenge our minds, to motivate our wondering, to introduce us to a world of human beings created in God’s image, and to make life the grandest of adventures.
Grace and peace,
Bob Guffey
댓글