And School Begins Again

His big round eyes followed me. His little face filled with confusion, fear, and betrayal. I read his silent plea as if the words had been spoken, “Don’t leave me.”

As I turned from the classroom, I remembered my son’s first baby vaccination, when those trusting eyes looked at me, startled, hurting, and as if betrayed.I read his silent plea as if the words had been spoken, “Don’t leave me.” Share on X

That look.

I walked away with a cheerful smile and wave before any tears began, praying they wouldn’t, hoping to make it to the car before mine started.

Kindergarten. Day 1. Last child.

I remember that walk-away. Everyone warned me, but I confidently assured them all, this was number four, and hey, I would be just hunky-dory.

My uneven steps headed straight to the parking lot, not meeting any of the other eyes, big or little along the way.

I wasn’t hunky nor dory.

I walked wooden legged, eyes down.

When I got to the car, I slid in, griped the wheel, laid my forehead against its solidness, and bawled like a baby just vaccinated.

A lot of mommies and daddies are going through phases of good-byes as their children go back to school. They begin a new school, a different grade, high school, college, and always a new independence. We follow them as they go, a little worried, proud, and even a bit mournful. Because each new adventure takes our children another toddler step farther away.

It’s like a puzzle piece in a big continuum of giving them up. A longer thinner umbilical stretch.

Sometimes we wonder if we’ve done it right. The painful ambiguous consequences of messing up our children forever brings fear and uncertainty.Each new adventure takes our children another toddler step farther away. Share on X

I’ve been there.

We can take courage from the pages of God’s Word, from Daniel and his friends, Esther, and Naaman’s wife’s little servant girl.

Daniel and his friends, taken from family and country, proved God faithful despite pressure to stray. Esther, raised without her parents in a pagan land, became Queen and saved her people from annihilation. Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, had his leprosy cured because a servant girl taken captive from her people, introduced her to God’s prophet Elijah.

We aren’t the first to feel as if these are perilous times, as if evil waits to snatch the hearts of our children and grandchildren.

Hannah, in an act of devotion and thanksgiving to the Lord, pledged to yield Samuel into the keeping of the priest, Eli. Far from home with a once a year visit in prospect, she yielded her son to a man whose own sons were corrupt. Like me, you may wonder, how she could do it?

For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord. (1 Samuel 1:27-28 ESV)

Surely this troubled her mommy-heart at times. She may have wondered how she could possibly walk away. But Hannah did, not once, but over and over again.

Every year she would estimate how much he grew, the timbre of his voice, and anticipate his face at her arrival. Her mommy-heart longed to care for him and protect him, to wrap him in her love, and so she sowed him a new robe each year. She wove her love into the cloth that would hug his little body, so that as he served God in the temple, a piece of her did too.

As she greeted him and then walked away again, she would feel the warmth of his little body against her, and know loss and joy.

Year after year Hannah had stamina and strength to leave because she knew to whom Samuel belonged.

He belonged to the Lord.

What we need to remember and cling to is much the same. Our precious children belong to the Lord. 

Jesus loves them more than we ever ever could. His purposes and plans reach farther than we can see through our blurred and watery vision.

It was a long time ago that I left number four in Kindergarten. But I can still see his eyes in my memory. Sometimes, they have that same look today. Like when his three little boys pose for their first day of school photos, or when he carefully watches them walk into the school building and slowly drives away.

We are warriors before God’s throne for the souls of generations. As they are placed into hands of others, may we be steadfast reminders of Whose hands hold them. When we walk away, may we rest in the One who watches over and loves always.

*Photo by Philip Schroeder (1993)