Some Fridays I participate in a little writing prompt called '
Five Minute Friday' which is now hosted over on the
Heading Home blog. The way it works is you're given a one word prompt, you tell your inner critic to hush, and then you write for five minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word. I didn't participate last week because I had an early appointment, and then the day kind of rolled on from there. In other words, I wasn't ready.
Coincidentally the prompt on Friday was this word-
ready.
Ironic, yes?
I thought I'd chime in on it here today because I've been thinking about that word quite a lot lately, particularly as it relates to my daughter who is getting married in a little less than four months. Is she ready? Have I done my job as a mother to make her ready?
I read a quote a while back that said-
'It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now.'
Not sure I agree with this in it's entirety, but I would say there's at least a kernel of truth in that statement. When I tell people my daughter is getting married they often ask her age, and then proceed to make a judgement call-too old? too young? We all do it, we all have some notion of what the magic age should be to get it just right. She's 26. From where I sit that sounds delightfully young, but in terms of how old is too young to get married, it's not so young.
She's been out of college in the grown up world of work for four years now, living several states away, paying her own bills, managing all the many areas of life that require managing, and doing a great job of it I might add. So she is officially an adult, not just in years but in maturity.
Is she ready to get married? Is marriage something you can be fully ready for? Isn't marriage a bit of a learn as you go proposition? Ha! Truth y'all.
I don't mean to imply we go in blind, because that's no good. When I look at my daughter I see someone who is confident and comfortable in her own skin. She is not looking for her fiance to define her, entertain her, fix her. She has a tender heart, a gentle disposition, and a passion for the people who cross her path. She knows how to compromise, fight fair, and is secure in the knowledge that God has a plan for her life.
Does that make her ready for marriage? Or does it simply mean she is ready for what marriage may bring? Because in my mind
that's the important thing. And in my
experience marriage is full of surprises, only some of which are the good kind. You discover things about a person you didn't know were there, and I'm not talking about in our spouses, although there is that. I'm talking about in our very own selves. Marriage shines a light on the best and worst parts of who we are and sometimes we're not ready for that.
Have I as a mother helped make my daughter ready for married life? I hope so. I pray that is so. I've set an example as a wife which statistics show she will likely follow, for better or worse. My daughter and I had a conversation recently where I was trying to get her to see something in another way. It was a little tense, and later when I thought about it I realized I was trying to get her to learn a lesson I'd learned through years of living. I felt like God was telling me to hush
(It took me a minute. Or two)...that I have got to let
Him write her story, the one with
her name on it,
not mine.
I ain't gonna lie...as a mother that's not such an easy thing to do. We know our children intimately, and we
think we know what they need now and forever and ever amen. We're older, wiser (sorry kids!) and we've learned a few things the hard way. We look back at our own married life and see things we wish we'd handled with a different action, attitude, or tone of voice, and we know some of what will roll their way as the calendar turns from one anniversary to the next. We review our own marriage film loop and see the good and the hard, the mundane and the unpredictable. As a mother I sometimes want to steer my children around the tough stuff and let them wallow in the beautiful. But!...
There's always a but when I want my way about something. In looking back at my own married life I see so clearly how some of life's stresses and the seemingly hard things we experienced as a young couple were the very things God used to cement us as man and wife. The joys too, but it has been primarily in the shared making of tough decisions, big and little mistakes, and in forgiveness granted, that God has knit us together.
I think back to when I was 26 years young. We'd been married for two years, we'd just purchased our first home, I was working full time, we didn't really know what we were doing, but we were figuring it all out together. And I was ready for that.
So is my girl.
Dear Darling Daughter1-
When I think about the early days of married life with Daddy I smile. He was just the hubs then, but that title Daddy was out there waiting for him. There is something so sacred about those early years. When you don't know what you don't know and you don't even care that you don't know it. You don't want someone to lay it all out there. You want to savor the now and imagine the future. To dream big dreams and chase them with all you have in you. And you should. Because you are ready.
Love,
Mom
