Good morning…
One of my favorite fall commitments, year after year, is speaking at the kickoff gathering for the Lovett School Moms In Prayer group. Yesterday around 8:00 am, about seventy-five of us collected in the Lovett scout hut to receive an encouraging word as we begin this new school year.
I was kindly introduced. Sue Allen. Mom of four Lovett grads, 27, 25, 23, 21. Wife of Rev. Steve Allen, Lovett Upper School chaplain for over 25 years. Women’s ministry director at Northside Church. Weekly teacher. Prayer warrior. Spiritual director. Everyday blogger. Each year I prayerfully consider, “God, what would you have me share?” This year the Spirit moved me to bring to life our recent post A Lifetime of Letting Go.
“Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son,” I read aloud from Exodus 2:1-2a. These nameless people married within their own Hebrew community and began to start a family. The challenging thing was exposed in the previous chapter. While they were slaves in Egypt, “the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them” (1:7). Fearful of a violent revolt, “Pharaoh gave this order to all of his people: ‘Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live'” (1:22).
Oh no, this Levite woman had just given birth to a son. “When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months,” I continued reading. “But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile” (Exodus 2:2b-3).
What was this mother doing, thinking, feeling? How could she let her child go? In a 2016 devotional entitled Putting the Basket in the Water: Trusting God in the Next Phase of Your Child’s Life, Ashlei Woods writes:
“The very river that could have drowned him was now his refuge. (The mother) had no idea what would happen to her baby, but she trusted the plan of the Father. As we know, baby Moses (whose name means ‘to draw out’) was drawn out of the water and would one day grow to become one of the greatest heroes of the Bible – the one who would rescue God’s people from slavery and lead them to the Promised Land.”
“Here’s what we can learn from this as parents: There comes a time – many times, actually – in the lives of our children where we have to put the basket in the water. We have to let go and trust the plan of the Father. The world is a scary place – a place where we fear our children could drown. But we must remember that we have to let go so that God can draw them from the waters for His great purpose. He has called us to be their parents, but they were His first.”
“My friend, whatever water you may be getting ready to put your basket into – whether your days as a stay-at-home-mom are ending as your child starts preschool soon or if your baby has grown into a high school graduate and is getting ready to leave your home – remember that you have to put them in the water for God to draw them out and place them into His perfect plan.”
Similarly, I am also reminded that the root word for “educate” means “to draw out from the darkness into the light.” We place our kids in the capable hands of this Lovett community so that the unique gifts God has implanted within them can gradually be drawn out.
Last week I held a four-month-old baby who had born prematurely at twenty-eight weeks. From a distance, in the arms of another person, the doting mother could see her growing daughter with a new perspective. As Thomas Merton says, “We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our bosom.”
Our bosom is not designed to be our children’s ongoing source of life. God is the Source. For our children to be exceedingly fruitful, we must practice the art of letting go and letting God. We let go, again and again, trusting God to draw out each child for a greater purpose.
…Sue…
