My daughter just had her third child, our first grandson. Everything they tell you about grandchildren is true and then some. There is an inexplicable joy seeing flickers of your own child in the child they created, and there is a humbling grace watching your love multiply again and again, revealing God’s inexhaustible generosity and goodness. Yet, as I watch my sweet girl manage her three children, four and under, I am reminded that this perspective of gratitude and awe were not available to me in those early years. I certainly had glimmers of it, of immense gratitude and amazement at what my body could do, what I could endure, the joy an infant smile could bring, but for the most part, we spent the better part of a decade (or more) just surviving. 

This holiday season I felt tremendous joy and gratitude as my home filled up, burgeoning with noise and food and laughter, and I tried to savor every moment,  yet all too quickly it emptied out again, grew quieter and emptier, causing a familiar ache as I looked at the empty chairs and empty beds. I wonder sometimes if I wasted time not savoring the years when the children were all around me–inside of me, on top of me–literally all around me, but I know, especially as I watch my oldest in the throes of those years, that the daily work of motherhood is not one for savoring. When old ladies, like me, tried to tell me to savor the little years, I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes and screaming, “I’m too tired to savor anything!”  When we are sleep deprived, physically and emotionally exhausted, living for bedtime and naptime, we can’t stop to consider the years and how fleeting they are because the days are so, so long. We get glimpses of how fleeting it all is, when our first child goes off to school, or the baby starts walking, but none of those moments prepared me for the rapid exodus of children from my home or the powerlessness I often feel observing them navigate their lives and making choices without me. 

I often say that the prayers of a mother’s heart in the early years are for her children’s safety and development, and for the stamina it takes to make it through the day. When they are teenagers, the prayers for their friends increase, and a sense of urgency to instill virtue, to make sure you say all the important things, make sure they know the Lord longs to woo them and make them his own. When they are adults, we have to learn to say less and to pray even more. We have to let them go, again and again. We have to trust that God’s grace is sufficient for them, and in our grief, that God’s grace sustains us as well. 

The beautiful reality is that we will always be their mother. Each of us, whether our children come to us biologically, through adoption, or bonus children in marriage, are called to love like Christ, and like Christ, to trust in the Father’s will (for us and for our children) above all things. Whether we are welcoming babies in rapid succession or longing for more, whether we are parenting many small children or watching our homes empty out quickly, we are loving like Christ and suffering with him. Like Paul, we can rejoice in our suffering and in the great privilege we have to unite our suffering and all the burdens of our heart with Christ on the cross. 

And the amazing reality is that we serve a good God, a God who loves us deeply, who is never outdone in generosity. For me, the greatest proof of this has been watching my house empty out only to be filled with the children of our children. Love multiplies. But even if you aren’t there yet, or if your heart is breaking because your children have left the Church or are living a life that does not include you, God is not done multiplying the love you poured out. God is constantly using this vocation to reveal his goodness, his love and his mercy.

I want to close with the words of Paul to the Colossians. I read this Scripture almost daily and pray it over my adult children especially, but these words are true for all of us. May they fill your heart with hope today, for you, for your children and for the beautiful promise of our inheritance in heaven.

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:11-14).