T Minus One Year

It's June of 2016. Sue and I have been married for 25 years now. Our life has been dominated for over 21 years by raising our 3 wonderful children.

People say you are never done parenting. Since we still enjoy getting our parents advice and wisdom we can only assume we will find that we are never done.

Let me give you an update on our situation.
•Anne just packed her belongings for her summer of working for USBank’s internal audit department in Downtown Minneapolis prior to her Senior year at Bethel. Then it is on to the real world. Paying taxes. (And in Anne’s case maybe processing them.)
•A couple of weeks ago I drove Mike to his summer job working in the human resource department of Cianbro in Readfield Maine. He is likely driving directly from Maine to school in Tennessee next fall.
•Sara has volunteered to work at Lake Beauty Bible Camp (LBBC) for 6 weeks this summer. She is also planning to spend at least one week as a camper at LBBC. She is looking at colleges for the fall of 2017. None are closer then 7 hours away. Nice example set by her siblings.

People love to ask Sue and I if we are ready. Our answer is always, YES. We love our children and being around them. But at least in my case my favorite place to be is home alone with Sue. (Sitting at Fenway isn’t realistic, they only play 81 home games.). Hopefully Sue would answer the same thing.

We love our children and we love to be with them. But we always raised them with the idea they would move on and move out. We always prayed they would go and find what God has in store for them.

When one of them returns home we stop what we are doing and revolve our lives around them. We eat their favorite things and do their favorite activities. As Sara will gladly attest. But Anne and Mike can also tell you we seem to live in a house centered on Sara and why not, she is the only one home. Well, when she is home.

When they leave we dive write back into our regular lives. It’s a blast. With or without them.

Do you cry when are son drives off to live in Maine? YES. But the joy you get from meeting his girlfriend, hearing about the new places he has discovered and the things he finds out for himself outweighs the sadness. Is it slightly stressful when you find out his car isn’t starting all the time during his first week in Maine? But knowing you have raised a son who can figure it out for himself is rewarding. Praise the Lord.

This could have been one last summer at home before Anne graduates from College. But she needs to hit the ground running. A high level internship makes it realistic to think she is ready for the real world. Anne is a fountain of good news. We are secure in knowing God has a plan for her and she is doing everything she can to find His plan.
We have one last summer with Sara before she hits her Senior year of High School. We are having a great time with Sara as an only child. But the joy of knowing it only took 5 minutes for LBBC to interview her and offer her a position as a counselor is more then reassuring. When she hung up the phone after only 5 minutes I asked why the interview was so short she said “because they know me.” Awesome.

So what is next? The chances next year we won’t be completely alone are nearly 100%. Unless Mike summers with us and Sara doesn’t like camp. Mike is already talking about other adventures and Sara has increased her LBBC involvement every year since we moved to Nebraska.

I am traveling about 10-15 days a month for ABC right now and next year will travel about 1-2 days a month.

Over the weekend Anne suggested Sue should join her is studying for the CPAs. She also suggested I get my MBA. I could also try some other personal ambition like joining the Colson Fellowship program.

Truth is we have no idea what God has in store for us. It is doubtful God’s plan is watching 162 Red Sox games.

What we do know is Sue and I are excited for our children and looking forward to the next phase in life.

By the way does anybody want what will be 3 year old Irish Terrier by this time next year? (Maybe she can be Anne’s graduation gift.) I can’t imagine God has Tessie in his plan for us. She seems to be of Satan.