Solitude

Today is the first time I have had any time to myself since I can remember, and it was good. It has only been for a couple hours, but that's ok. The little Matheny family left early this morning for the long drive to Amarillo. I've spoken to them, and found that they arrived safely there this afternoon with just minutes to spare before the next snowstorm hit. Thank you Lord! And the kids were great travelers today, so that was great to hear. Linda and Lindsay went to my folks to eat and watch the UT-AZ bowl game. Hook'em!

Carla left shortly afterward for San Antonio, but not before downloading all her music and Christmas photos onto my portable hard-drive, yipppeeee!!!!! Thank you Carla. She is off to work the cheer competition in Orlando next week as FCC staff. It's so amazing that all my girls are pursuing their respective passions. And they all love each other so very much! Even their boyfriends/husbands seem to respect and appreciate one another. It was great to pull together as a united front to make the wedding dreams come true for Julie and Jon, who are hanging out on an island in the Caribbean about now for another couple days, sigh...

It's hard having your kids live so far away. Empty nest is a poignant time of life. My girls don't realize that my focus for 27 years has been them, and that's it's hard to start a new life alone without their companionship. Of course I'm grateful they have their own lives and their own friends, and they seem on course for good futures with loving relationships. That is all such a relief for me as a mother, especially when so many of my peers have no offspring at all, or have children who have never stopped causing them grief. I cannot ever complain about my girls causing me grief, only about their outgrowing their need for me in their lives.

Now I have to turn to the Lord and continually ask, What next? What is my purpose? What do you have in store for me? It seems the best of life is over, and what lies ahead will be anticlimactic compared to the child-rearing years of joy and two-way love expressed on a daily basis. It can't get any better than that. I know that I am expected to let go and "get a life" as the world tells me these days, but that is contrary to my instincts as a mother. As Mr. Biddison always shares at the SACS senior camping trip to the kids and their parents, no one will ever love them as much as we parents do for as long as we both shall live. We may be gone and forgotten, but we never stop loving and needing love in return. Just as God wants to be loved by His children in return, forever... God gave us this earthly family and these relationships to better understand His love for us. All I have to do is think of my love for my children to understand God's love for me. I thank Him for that.

As humans, we need to feel connected to others, and to God, I believe. I am blessed to have made some lifelong connections, I hope, in Kenya. That gives me hope that God will send me back there again. I was overjoyed to receive a beautiful hand-made Christmas card from Margaret and the other girls at Faith House yesterday. The timing was superb, as I had found my mind drifting back to Kenya all week, for some reason I can't explain. I look forward to creating another photostory to share about our safaris there, to supplement the original one on the mission work itself. That one was about work, and this one will be about play. So far, I have at least one friend interested in returning to Rafiki Village with me. Dottie, my friend and family doc, has expressed genuine interest in volunteering her service during a Community Medical clinic in the foreseeable future. We'll see how this pans out. I dream of it, and it seems like a wonderful opportunity to share the love we experienced over there. Perhaps that will become a regular activity for me--sharing Africa and Rafiki with other friends, live and in the flesh! I can't wait to see what God does with those kids we are being given to love and teach and raise to adulthood! I hope I see the outcome in my lifetime!

Now it's time for me to check on UT in the bowl game...good night!