Season of eventful happenings...

While going through all of the ups and downs of the impending empty nest, I have been overwhelmed with all of the events happening in my families life recently.  It seems like you go through some seasons of life that seem a bit boring and uneventful, then there are times when it seems things are happening at break neck speed.  This week has been one of those where events seem to be rolling over one another, all good but a bit overwhelming.  No, no one has hit the lottery or made $1million in a day, but the events we have experienced are the ones of firsts and lasts.

In life we chronicle the first times of almost everything we do and experience.  Our kids first steps, the first tooth, the first full nights sleep, the first time they read a book, the first day of school, the first tooth lost, the first baseball game, the first report card, the firsts are important.  With my older children I began seeing the last time they did things.  The last day of breastfeeding, the last day of kindergarten, the last time they crawled in your lap and many in between.  What I didn't do was experience the lasts and found myself later trying to remember the last time something happened.  This experience was lost never to be again.  I had to sit down and reflect on the importance of these lasts, not in a mourning way but in a way of reflection and thanksgiving.  I am blessed that I did because now I experience these lasts by celebrating and rejoicing rather than flying through them and on to the next thing.

This past week I experienced coming home after the last time I would see my oldest son pitch in a college baseball game, his last graduation (at least he says so), and the last experience with his fellow teammates and graduate school classmates.  It was such a celebration, but I came home and reflected about that time and all of the events.  Then the experience of the last day of my middle son's Junior Year of college.  He is now a Senior and in the last year of college.  We celebrated over the phone his achievements and excellent grades and then the first draft of his Medical School application!  Then at the end of the week I celebrated a first with my youngest son, his first campus visit to a school that is interested in recruiting him to play baseball while attending their University in a large US city.  We fell in love with the campus and the baseball facilities while truly enjoying the coaching staff.  It was also a first that my husband was able to attend a recruiting visit with my youngest son.  What a week of incredible happenings in our family.

As I sit exhausted after returning from our trip to the big city and reflecting on the happenings of the week I have one conclusion, I am a very blessed woman!  I thank God for all of the blessings He has placed on me and my family.  Our lives are not perfect but they are perfectly guided by the Lord.

"For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,

for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.  

Then you will understand what is right and just and fair---every good path."

Proverbs 2:6-9