Parents get glimpses of how God is loved

By Marie Luttrell

May is the month of the great cottonwood release. For a few weeks later this month, the millions of seeds of the tall cottonwood trees will float here and there, settling into and sprouting in cracks in the sidewalk, in garden beds, and on forest floors.

Later in the year we can witness the return of salmon to small streams where the dance of the spawning female and fertilizing male produce a new generation of young left to fend for themselves. Mammals care for their young a little longer, depending on the lifespan, but when it is time to let them go on their own, it is done.

Nature works in a way that we humans have a difficult time understanding. We nurture so carefully, doing our very best with the skills we have to bring our offspring to adulthood.

We hope our efforts will have made them competent, caring adults who will carry on the virtues we have tried to instil. We do our best to see that they know the value of generosity, hear the constant invitation of God to believe in Him, and understand the nature of commitment to something greater than themselves.

So often the letting go is the difficult part. We feel nothing in common with that cottonwood tree or spawning salmon, who simply release their young and go on to the next.

Ironically, though, just as nature gives back its young, we too are called to give our children back to God. Unlike trees and fish, God made us for relationships with God and with other people, so when we nudge out children out of the nest and send them into their adult lives, we retain a heart connection with them. The bond of parent/child is rarely totally broken.

Our model for letting go is God. God takes the risk of giving us freedom in order that we can become fully who we are meant to be. He lets us choose our paths (and most choices are between this good and that good), lets us fall with failure if necessary, and allows us even the freedom to love Him or not to love Him.

Throughout our lives He accompanies us, ready in a moment to forgive, to guide, to embrace, to love us more than we could imagine possible. Because God put the spark of the divine within us, we know that this is how we should be letting our own children go.

It seems the letting-go process begins at the moment of birth. We no longer carry our children constantly with us. The sleeping infants must, at times, sleep by themselves. The learning process of the first few years, that amazing world of play and discovery, gives children the knowledge of how the world operates, and the independence to start on the path of functioning in that world.

We feel pain with them as they go through the necessary tumbles of early childhood, and we try to soothe their tears. There is a joy as our children become competent, but also a wound in this growth, because they do not need us as much.

Through later childhood and teen years, our sons and daughters grow in their freedom from us. We have the great privilege of helping them discover the passion of their lives: what it is they wish to pursue, what talents they will be able to give to the world.

Often we invest our own time heavily in this, overseeing the piano practice, the homework, the hours at the soccer field or hockey arena, the bake sales for the Scout troop, the constant driving for field trips. All this work gives us a reward too, giving us parents meaning and giving us solid adult friendships.

However I believe when this stage is finished we most intensely feel the pain of letting go. Our own worlds have been so absorbed in our children’s world, and now we have to find other ways to keep meaning in our activities and to keep our friendships thriving.

We are called to give back to the world in a different mode. We want still to cling to our children, to be the people most important to them, but at the same time, want to see them go through the young adult years, learning for themselves who they are meant to be for life. If we cling too much, if we never let them fail or feel the pinch of want, we deny them the core strength of adulthood.

I believe this is written into our souls as firmly as the eagle knowing when it is time to cease the flying lessons and force the young out of the nest. We know we have to let go, physically, and simply be the person on the periphery for a time. We know that our children must be "away" from us in order to find out who they are. It isn’t easy for them or us.

It is when they return, though, that we find joy and comfort in these adults we have raised. They now teach us, walk with us as friends, brings us their children for our delight.

Being a parent, as God models parenthood for us, means we can also get glimpses of how it feels to be loved as people love God. Letting go, giving freedom, as hard as it is, brings this about.