Fine Lines

There is a fine line between a multitude of good intentions and the antithesis of those intentions. For example, there's a fine line between being generous and being foolish with your resources. There's a fine line between being helpful and being bossy. There's a fine line between using your gifts for planning & organizing to help things go smoothly and in driving people crazy with trying to plan and organize EVERYTHING (in their lives and in yours). I think I live my life with one foot dangling on either side of each and every fine line.

I usually have the best of intentions. But I find more and more that my giftings can be used for good or for evil. It's all in how I learn to use them. And certainly no one helps me identify more quickly when I'm stepping over those fine lines than my children.

I want my daughter's lives to be amazing. I want everything to go well for them. I want excitement and adventure. I want them to be able to go through life wide-eyed and full of wonder at all God has created, and all that there is to experience. Now, I know it's good for them to go through trials and to have things fall apart now and then. It causes growth, maturity. But even knowing that, and even though I thank God for every time He brings them through and for everything He reveals to them in the process, I don't like it. I just want them to be happy. Always.

So I try to help in any way I can. And do I wind up being the thoughtful, caring, loving, nurturing mom I try to be? Sometimes, but all too often I think it comes across more as controlling, pushy, and even (ugh) manipulative. I work everything out in my head for the best possible scenario for them and then I lay my well-thought-out plan before them, thinking what? That they'll embrace it and thank me for planning out their lives? Even I know they don't want me planning out their lives.

But what they don't realize is I lay awake at night dreaming of all their possibilities. I pray for God to give them wonderful experiences. I pray for their future spouses and for the lives they will have together. I pray they get to live out some of their dreams. I pray that the beautiful smiles can always stay on their faces.

I think I've heard people mention it once or twice in the distant past, but I never realized how hard it was going to be to let go. Every time I let the thought flit through my head that they don't need me like they used to, my heart skips a beat. What is that deep pain? And how do I possibly let go of these two girls who have been the center of my purpose for so many years? I have always planned things for them. I've always taken care of them. I've always picked them up when they've fallen and shown them the path to take next.

But now I stand in the background and watch. They must have paid more attention than I thought, because just look at how capable they are of making their own decisions. They know what to do. And if they fall, they know how to get up and head the right direction. They know God is their only true hope. And as long as they know that, they will always be okay.

So I try to stay on the right side of that thin line. And every time I succeed (and even every time I fail) that line seems to become more defined. It gets wider and bolder. And I manage to keep from stepping over it a little more often. But the funny thing is, that wider and bolder line doesn't become a giant chasm between my daughters and I. They have their lives and I have mine, but that thick bold line becomes the place where we meet in the middle. The place our lives intertwine. The place where our individual lives come together and we laugh and cry and share.

You see, they still really need me. They just need me differently.