I cried a lot in my first semester of college. Behind one of nearly fifty identical doors on my floor, alone in my single room, I cried through bouts of homesickness. On my first night, I wrote in my prayer journal, “Jesus, will you be my friend?” Other nights, I was tired enough to fall asleep quickly in my strange new bed. But my first urge was always to call my mom.
She always answered. Sometimes when she picked up, I would already be in tears, simultaneously relieved to hear her voice and apologetic that she had to listen to me struggle yet again. She never dismissed my tears, never told me she was too busy to talk, never gave up on listening and encouraging and enduring alongside me. She sent me letters and emails. She told me, in an email out of the blue, about her own experience working abroad and feeling the sudden sting of homesickness.
Three years later, I’m entering my last semester of college. I don’t miss my freshman year, but I am grateful for that season at least in part because I experienced the tenderness and faithfulness of my mom’s love. Yet I know it was a season of change for her, too.
So if I could go back in time with the advantage of hindsight, this is what I would tell her—and all the other mothers and fathers who are about to send their children off to college.
God hears your prayers.
I know that you are praying for comfort in the transition, for Christian friends, for a sound church and a loving community. I know you are praying faithfully. Be assured that the Lord hears, for “this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14).
Thank you for asking according to his will. I don’t think either of us are naïve enough to think that these years will be painless or frictionless. We both know that on this side of eternity, we are promised tribulation (John 16:33). But your ultimate desire and prayer for me has always been a deeper, sweeter knowledge of Christ—which is his will for me (1 Thess. 4:3). Let this be your confidence: that as you ask according to his will, he hears you.
One day you will hear me say that you were right. God, in his perfect timing, has done more than I could ask or imagine. He carried me through my homesickness. He brought me lifelong friends to rejoice with me and weep with me. He gave me a gospel-preaching church bound together by brotherly love and zeal.
These are all answers to your prayers. He has indeed heard and answered. He has indeed blessed me abundantly—because of your prayers.
God means good for you, too.
You are learning what it means to be an empty nester. I know you are feeling a sense of loss, of grieving. I wasn’t the only one who cried when we said goodbye.
I wonder if that is similar to what Paul felt when he was “torn away” from the Thessalonian church, “in person not in heart” (1 Thess. 2:17). He compares his own ministry to that of a mother’s love: “we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess. 2:7). To be “torn away” so abruptly by the force of circumstances was to be parted from those he loved like his own children.
Yet the Lord intended for Paul to continue in ministry elsewhere. He meant good for Paul and for the people he was to evangelize and disciple. It was his providence that took Paul away from Thessalonica, and it is his providence that has brought you into a new season of life. There are waiting for you many “good works, which God prepared beforehand” (Eph. 2:10). In just a year, you will be leading a small group, discipling younger women, counseling believers in need, and growing in your ministry as a wife. You will have more opportunities to learn how to teach the Bible. You will love your church so well—and I am glad that others will be encouraged and taught by you.
Fear not: this season is good. The Lord does not waste.
God is growing our relationship.
Change is scary. It’s scary because we’re afraid of the loss of a good thing. What if the distance proves too great? What if time zones and busy schedules make us drift apart? What if you change? What if I change?
Remember that only Jesus is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). You know that we will both change, and we will also both fail each other. Our worlds will start to look more and more different: our social circles, daily routines, the sermons we’re used to hearing, the meals we’re used to eating. It will not be the same.
But for Christians, change is a good thing. Even now, we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). Day by day, year by year, as we both mature in the Lord, we will be changing—and we will not be the same people, the same mother and daughter. By God’s grace, we will change.
Change means that the same Holy Spirit is growing us both to reflect the same Christ. As we know our Lord better, we will also learn to imitate his gentleness, his depth of love, his conviction for the truth, and his delight in holiness. In short, we will be far better equipped to love one another. I rejoice that you, in particular, are my mom, and that we will always have an irreplaceable, special love for each other. I rejoice too that we are learning to walk together as friends, encouragers, and sisters in Christ. Our relationship will only be sweeter.
God is near to both of us.
One of my greatest comforts as I left home was God’s omnipresence—there is no place I can go that will escape his presence: “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” (Ps. 139:8). Likewise, if I am at home, the Lord is there. And if I leave and go far away, the Lord is there.
We who have been joined to Christ in his death and resurrection have an even sweeter assurance. We know that we will never be parted from God’s love. These familiar words are for me and for you: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38).
In the course of a lifetime, we may be separated from so many things—our homes, our families, our comforts and possessions—but we will never be separated from the love of God. This is why, in the present, we can grow and work and learn, assured by the love of God though we are apart—and assured by the love of God that we will one day never be parted again.
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