We Can Never Move “Home” Again

I recognize it as a gift of time.  An awesome privilege.  A Mom’s full cup.  “What was it?”, you may ask.  Too have ALL of our boys home for the holidays. 

Such a treat.  Not all perfect, easy and fantastic.  Yet, deeply good!

They, Aubrey and Andrew,  have transitioned.  They’ve made the leap.  From dependent and living at home to independent and living at a University and a boarding high school.  With schedules brimming to maximum capacity, jobs, extra curricular activities and fending for their own personal needs…..they are embracing life.  They returned to Papua changed.  And yet they returned eyes and souls wide open to receive what this land is good at giving.  Beauty.  Tropical awe.  Third world reality. Adventure.  Familiarity.  Friends.  Family. 

And we stood.  Ready to embrace them.  Ready to stand back and let them take it all in and process where they have been and where they are now and where they are going.  And it was good.  It was not all easy.  A Mommy does not like to hear her son say, “If my life totally falls apart, I can never move home again.  I can’t get a visa for here.  I had to leave.”  As much as that is not nice to hear, that the nest no longer has a visa slot hanging on it, maybe it is more of what my boys need to hear?  “Be strong.  Face your lions.  Fight.  You can do this.  Dig deep and drink for the source of light and water that we have trained you about even while you were still in the womb.” “Ok, so it is not NORMAL for most parents to fly away and leave their kids without a ‘home’….however, each of you know…..this is where we are supposed to be and where you are supposed to be.” 

So what did we do?  We stayed HOME for tons of hours and days.  Playing Dutch Blitz.  We have a dozen and a half other board games and we ONLY played Dutch Blitz.  For hours.  It was fantastic.  We are STILL playing Dutch Blitz.  Haha!  We camped one night at a remote tropical beach. With friends.  The boys had remote controlled different colored lights (featured on Andrew’s vlog:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shfHEUuxVEk&list=UURurg2Cey2Hs0wNVKwSO_Aw&index=17 )  and they spent over an hour doing a photo shoot with these lights on our beach night expedition.   It was magical.  And the brothers.  The brothers just were brothers.  Boyd brothers.  Connected.  Bonded.  “Bro’s”.

We talked. 

They ate.  A lot.

We processed.  Them.  Us.  We’ve all changed.  We all feel the strain of new growth.  Of new understanding. 

And then they left.  And that was hard.  Yet good.  They are going and doing what they need to do.  And we are staying and doing what we need to do.  And if we listen.  And if we hear.  I’m quite certain we would hear the Creator of us all say, “It is very good”.

A Missionary Mothers Prayer:

Heavenly Father, please bridge the gap between them and me.  Be to them what we can no longer be.  Span the miles and the distance.  The vacant spaces where maybe a hug is needed or a listening ear is desired.  Or even a physical need that they don’t feel they can express.  Father, You are outside of time and space……so I trust these boys to You again.  Placing them in Your capable hands.  Recognizing that with You, in-between us, there is no big chasm of space or void, yet there is room enough for my boys to fly.  Help them to soar.  And may our time apart be graced with Your presence and peace. Grant them a feeling of “home”, where ever and however that may look and be for them.  Of belonging.  And a place to go when needed.  Amen.