Parting is such sweet sorrow – Billy Shakespeare summed it up pretty well. I spent yesterday moving my daughter out of our house and into her apartment at college. It was a surprisingly bittersweet experience. Yesterday marked the culmination of what my wife and I have been preparing our daughter for, for the last 18 years. All those years of helping her study to make good grades, teaching her the tenets of our faith, and hauling her around the country to soccer tournaments have resulted in an athletic scholarship that will help offset the cost of preparing her for a career. My daughter now has a great apartment almost in the shadow of the university library. She shares her apartment with three new friends and teammates hailing from Houston, Conway, AR, and Oklahoma City. New friends, new horizons, new opportunities! This is a day of celebration…….. right?
My daughter’s dad was completely unprepared for the emotional impact of his baby girl moving out of the house. This is the same little girl that caused me to weep for joy 18 years ago when she was born. This is the same little girl that I taught to ride a bicycle and the proper way to shoot free throws. This is the same little girl who wore a cardboard tea kettle and sang, “I’m a little teapot” in her preschool program. Oh sure, she will be home on school breaks for a week or two at a time. But she will never, ever again really live with her mother and me for an extended time. As I drove away alone from the university yesterday, I had a lump the size of an orange in my throat. Excuse me while I dab my eyes. It must be my darn allergies. [Sniff, sniff.]
For the past 18 years, my goals and passions have been tightly entwined with those of my daughter. But now her road and mine diverge. As time goes on, her aspirations will have less and less to do with me. It is the changing of a season of life. It is normal and natural if somewhat melancholy.
As we pursue our life goals and passions, people will be brought into our lives for a time to aid in the pursuit of those goals; to share in the struggles and joys. Sharing the intimacy of a foxhole in these pursuits often creates a strong bond. So when others decide their goals then lie in a different direction, we are sometimes disappointed or hurt. But this is as natural as my daughter leaving for college. People will join our crusade for a season and then many, if not most, may leave. Their leaving doesn’t invalidate their contribution, nor the goal, nor their calling for that season.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived wrote:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, and time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
I have been thinking a lot this week about what Solomon and Shakespeare each wrote and the application that their words have for my daughter and me. As you pursue, your goals and passions, and as people join and leave that pursuit, maybe their words have some application for you as well.
What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?
My daughter’s dad was completely unprepared for the emotional impact of his baby girl moving out of the house. This is the same little girl that caused me to weep for joy 18 years ago when she was born. This is the same little girl that I taught to ride a bicycle and the proper way to shoot free throws. This is the same little girl who wore a cardboard tea kettle and sang, “I’m a little teapot” in her preschool program. Oh sure, she will be home on school breaks for a week or two at a time. But she will never, ever again really live with her mother and me for an extended time. As I drove away alone from the university yesterday, I had a lump the size of an orange in my throat. Excuse me while I dab my eyes. It must be my darn allergies. [Sniff, sniff.]
For the past 18 years, my goals and passions have been tightly entwined with those of my daughter. But now her road and mine diverge. As time goes on, her aspirations will have less and less to do with me. It is the changing of a season of life. It is normal and natural if somewhat melancholy.
As we pursue our life goals and passions, people will be brought into our lives for a time to aid in the pursuit of those goals; to share in the struggles and joys. Sharing the intimacy of a foxhole in these pursuits often creates a strong bond. So when others decide their goals then lie in a different direction, we are sometimes disappointed or hurt. But this is as natural as my daughter leaving for college. People will join our crusade for a season and then many, if not most, may leave. Their leaving doesn’t invalidate their contribution, nor the goal, nor their calling for that season.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived wrote:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, and time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
I have been thinking a lot this week about what Solomon and Shakespeare each wrote and the application that their words have for my daughter and me. As you pursue, your goals and passions, and as people join and leave that pursuit, maybe their words have some application for you as well.
What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?
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