Tonight was a night of all of the feels, all of the time.

In order to have a night of all of the feels, all of the time, there needs to be some lead up, some significant event that brings all those feelings to the surface. Or if not to the surface, then percolating like emotional lava underneath the cracked rock bed of your heart.

Those kinds of feels.

It began last week when my husband sent me a video of my oldest who had just received his registration for high school. Yep.

That’s when the close-to-the surface feelings began. They’d been simmering for a while deeper down as he has done things like be in grade 8 and all, and gotten peach fuzz, and been immersed in his youth group. Those kind of feels can stay low inside of you because you know that there is change coming, just not right now.

I was away at a retreat and got this video and started tearing up and the Harry Chapin song ‘Cat’s Cradle’ started running through my head and I remembered how my son’s head used to quirk to the side when he was a baby and how he wore sleepers with tiny feet that his feet would never stay in the bottom of.

Those kinds of feels.

Now, I tease my son that on his last day of Grade 8 I will show up at his school in heavy Victorian black and veils and weep ‘my baby’ while embracing his humiliated self. I won’t actually do it, but it’s a joking way of me expressing my acknowledgement of the transition that is coming.

And tonight it began in earnest.

Tonight was……..High School Open House.

A time where we walk into the new building that will be his stomping grounds, the building that is farther away, where lunch is longer, and where there are big fish in a big pond. A building that holds things like science labs with accessible explosive gasses and a new library and a canteen where they pair BLT sandwiches with Caesar salad.

It’s his kind of heaven, really.

And I got to go with him.

I had the opportunity to follow him around the school at a pace not often seen in my oldest. I got to see him walk with purpose, let him choose the direction, and never once told him to wait for me.

I got to watch his joy and excitement and intention in finding that library!

I watched as he impressed his future librarian with his memorized knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system and witnessed an informal interview for a volunteer position. I heard how his library supervisor at his current school had been talking him up to the new librarian.

I saw him speed up to one of his friends (also with parent in tow), chatter about the expanded Non-fiction section at this library, and motor onward, as I tried to offer a glancing comment to the other mother who I had never met.

I watched him search and explore the potential of his new world.

I walked the halls with and behind him.

It was glorious.

 

On the way home he asked me ‘Mom, why are the parents all (waving hands about) giddy and happy at seeing their kids there tonight?”.

I answered without hesitation “It’s because we love you and because we love you we get such joy in how you’re learning new things, having new experiences, and moving to this new stage of life”.

It’s because of the love that we can overflow with joy for others.

After my gleeful son went to bed, I started to think about this poignant joy that I felt. Looking at my son’s future and seeing his future joy. That even though there will be days where he is nervous and unsure, where embarrassment may come and he will struggle, he is embracing the new.

Earlier, as we were walking into the building he told me “Mom, I’ve decided to take a new approach to new situations. If there’s something to worry about, I’ll worry. But if there’s not or if I can’t do anything to change it, I’m just not going to get worked up about it.”

I love that.

There are times when I encounter transitions and I look more to the worry than to the opportunity. Where I rationalize my way into fear and trepidation where I should race ahead with joy and determination.

Where I need to reverse the roles and be an excited child to my joyful heavenly father.

This God who watches my transitions with joy as I move into situations. This God who watches me, who keeps stride with me, who looks at how I encounter others along my journey to celebrate with.

He knows that the road will not always be easy.

He knows that there will be bumps and stalls and emotional skinned knees. There will be rejection and confusion.

But he sees the joy of the journey. 

As I see my child, and myself in my child, I receive and offer the good gifts that the parent gives their children. I to my son, God to me, and God to him.

As I watch my son walk before me I know that God will be with him, too, in his mountain tops and valleys, in the classrooms and in the conversations. The good gifts of his provision will come along the journey, I know this, because I’ve experienced this.

God’s mercies are new every morning and new every generation.

It is our job to celebrate and share the joy.