Who We Truly Belong To

He marches through the rain soaked yard early in the morning, takes the path around and ends up at my Dad's office door.  I watch him go through the window, see him hop to avoid especially soggy spots along the way.  I remember watching him toddle on 2 year old legs over to Grandma's house, and now his lanky boy stride is so much wider and longer. 

He goes to print off a form, in the absence of a home printer.  He comes back and shows me how Grandma even typed the envelope for him, his own name in the space of the return address.

We fill out the form together, he points "here, Mom, this is where you sign."  As if it really is just that easy, a bit of pen to mark my permission for this baby, this boy to leave me for a whole week.  I smile and nod and sign my name, and he quickly folds it up and stuffs it in the envelope, throws his arms up in a cheer "I am going to CAMP!" and dashes out the door to the mailbox, his waterlogged sneakers leaving boy sized prints on the kitchen floor.

And while his head is full of fishing and shooting and swimming and boating, mine is full of thoughts of letting go...just a little.

I remember a friend, going through a particularly hard break up.  He told me "I can't let her go."  And I told him he had no choice, that she didn't belong to him.

And the more I think on it, the more I realize that we don't really belong to anyone either.  These children, born into my hands as helpless babes, they are not mine.  My responsibility for a time, yes.  In my charge and care, yes.  But they are not mine - I do not own them.  Someone else does.  I'm just here to guide them on their way to bigger and better things than A-B-C's and Mother Goose.

He comes in and throws his arms around me, so thrilled at the prospect of summer camp.  I note his tan, the scratches and bruises that seem to randomly appear on hard playing boy bodies.  His goofy smile and big beaver teeth.  His baby blue eyes. And once again I'm struck at the privilege of this moment, just this one, here with this amazing person.

I was clicking through various blogs the other day, and I saw this quote:  "Before I was a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, a mother - I was His."

I won't be at camp with him this summer.  Won't be there to make sure that he is ok, that everything is fine.  But the one that he truly belongs to will be keeping an eye out.  What could possibly be better?

This boy, he's not mine -- he is His.  Before he was ever mine and long after I'm gone, he is His.


Romans 14:8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.