Graduating a Child: A Pity Party for One

I’m having a pity party for one today—a full-blown sobfest because today is the second-to-last day of high school for my firstborn. I’ve been holding up pretty well this year; random welling up when I talk too long about her graduating and going off to college, but on the whole, I have remained upbeat and enthusiastic about this rapidly approaching new phase in her life—as well as mine.

Until today. Today, I just can’t muster the enthusiasm. Retail therapy isn’t in my wheelhouse. Exercise is, but today that doesn’t even seem to chase the blues away. Facebook doesn’t help—in fact, it depresses me even more, because it’s the second-to-last day for a lot of us moms, and everyone seems to want to post #TBT pictures of their kiddos as kindergarteners. It’s more than I can handle today.

I decided since nothing is getting me out of this funk, I may as well embrace it—Hello, Pity Party! Today I’m not happy or excited about my daughter graduating. I’m just incredibly sad. All I can think about is her not being here next year, this little girl who has been part of my world for eighteen years, who has taught me about the joys and the burdens of motherhood; the girl who opened my eyes up to Christ again, in a brand new and vibrant way.

She’s my estrogen support system at dinner when my husband and son consume the dinner conversation with sports, statistics about sports, or the athletes who play sports. And today, all I can think about is the dinner conversations next year, and how lonely I’m going to feel listening about football plays and predictions that I don’t understand, or basketball seasons that seem to stretch for an eternity. Gone are the witty remarks about life or our family and the often deep discussions about faith, relationships, and living that ensued right after dinner. Today, I am wallowing in the possibility that I will be stabbing at my broccoli in silence when my feeble attempts to chime in on why I think football players should practice yoga and Pilates are ignored, or even worse, received with “that look” guys get when you engage in topics that are beyond your skill set. You know the one where they sort of roll their eyes up, let out a deep sigh, and then slightly shake their head as if to say, “Really? Did you really just say that?”

Now, here I am, not just crying, but ugly crying. The kind of crying that seems to be relentless and is accompanied with body wracks, loud foreign wailing from your mouth, and an endless supply of snot trailing out of your nose. Not the typical way I cry, because I never have time or privacy to cry like that. Seriously, what mom does?

So here I am seriously getting my ugly crying on, when I feel a soft tapping at the door of my heart. Not too loud, but clear enough to know that my Father wants to join my party. Ugh . . . He’s going to tell me to stop with the sniveling and to quit feeling sorry for myself. But I know I need to let Him in; it’s the right thing to do.

Why do I always think He’s here to correct me? Today, he merely wants to sit with me and remind me of a few things I had forgotten during Cryfest 2016.

1. He is the “God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). He gets it. I mean, think about it: he not only had to watch his Son leave heaven, he had to watch him go to the cross and the grave. My daughter is just going to Fort Worth, for goodness sake! Why on earth would I have a pity party without the One who can empathize so intimately?

2. It’s ok to be sad. He revealed to me that so often my emotions are intertwined with my children’s. As my old pastor liked to say, “We truly are as happy as our saddest child.” I have been experiencing much of my sadness on that level for so long, I had forgotten that I can be sad independently from my children. He reminded me that it’s not only ok, but it’s also healthy to grieve this life event, even in the midst of celebrating it. And I have to be honest, ugly crying is amazingly cathartic.

3. Joy comes in the morning. His word tells us in Psalm 30 that “weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes with the morning” (v. 5). My sadness about my girl going off to college is only temporary! There is going to be great joy in this new stage of our lives. My son will get to experience being an “only child” for three years, and what a joy I will have as a mom to be able to deepen and nurture our relationship in that environment. I get to be his cheerleader at all of his sporting events without worrying about my daughter’s schedule. Who knows, maybe I will even learn the name of the position he plays and actually understand what the X’s and Y’s on his football sheets really mean. And my daughter gets to charter new territory with her Heavenly Father. A journey for which he has been preparing her for the past eighteen years. She is ready, and he is with her. The Lord is the stronghold of her life—that alone causes me to sing a joyful noise!

So if you, too, are finding yourself silently grieving about your soon-to-be high school graduate, give yourself permission to throw yourself a pity party. Just be sure to invite your Creator. He may not bring cake and ice cream, but he thinks you are beautiful even when you ugly cry, and He always brings a hefty dose of comfort and a sweet joy in the morning!

Taken from: http://www.christianparenting.org/articles/graduating-child-pity-party-one/