The Difficulty of Letting Go

This is how I see her.  I know in my head that she is a nineteen year old, beautiful young woman.  In my heart, however, she is still my little girl.  She is my oldest.  We have been through so much, good and bad, together.  She loved Christ before I did.  She is strong and independent.  She always has been, even when she was tiny.  I can't imagine my life without her in it, my everyday without her smile lighting up my world.

She is leaving me.

In the few days since she told me that she is moving several states away, I have been through a plethora of emotions.  I never thought it would be this hard to let go.  I never thought, when she moved out, that she would be moving so far away.  I had expected an apartment or a dorm room to be in her future, not a seventeen hour drive.

Letting go has never been easy for me.  I am struggling, and I admit it.  I love that girl and would give my life for her.  I remember being a young woman, being anxious to start my life, feeling like home was holding me back from that life.  I understand the need to go and see the world.  It is still difficult.  It is still the hardest thing I've ever encountered as a mom.  Worse than the first day of kindergarten or that first date, this time letting go means watching her leave my home.

I have been praying for days for the strength to handle things well.  My beautiful, talented, strong, courageous daughter will not be living with me.  She has had to deal with so much in her life, yet I still feel she is not ready.  She has dealt with her parents divorce, her father being in the military, and living life since age thirteen with type 1 diabetes.  She has seven younger siblings. 

Is she ready for the world?  Of course not!  She's nineteen.  At nineteen I was her mommy, but I wasn't ready for the world.  I take some comfort in the knowledge that she has a relationship with Christ.  I pray that she stays strong in her faith as there will be so many things that will try to steal that faith away from her.  I plan to cover her in prayer daily.

I am trying not to worry about all the things I naturally want to worry about.  Her college, all the people she will meet, where will she go to church, will she have physical problems... the worries that come to my mind are endless.  I guess this is where I need to trust God and trust her.  I am sure she has a lot of lessons about life to learn.  I pray those lessons aren't learned the hard way, as I learned so many.  I pray that my daughter stays smart and fun and in love with Jesus.

The years have gone by so quickly.  How is it possible that my beautiful daughter is moving away from home?  I know, I know... I am taking this too hard.  It is a natural part of life.  The situation has some twists in it, but even those aren't things I can control.  All I can do is let my daughter know that she is loved, here or there.