There are many stages in life when you look at each one as they appear and say to yourself, I’m not sure I can do this.

I experienced that when I had my first child. Not only did I say it when I delivered my daughter naturally, without drugs, but when I brought her home and was afraid to put her in her crib at night for fear that something might happen to her when I wasn’t looking. 

I raised two children, opted to homeschool both, and wondered what the hell I was thinking, but we plowed on and got through my daughter’s eighth-grade year and my son’s sixth-grade year before the grace lifted and the baton was passed to others I entrusted with their higher learning. 

Then again, when one went off to college, I thought there was no way I could see my daughter leave the nest, and to make matters worse, she traveled abroad, and I nearly expired over it, although it was the best experience for her.

Then, when my son left home and went away to college, I became an empty nester. It’s at that stage in life when everything changes. Those little people you brought into the world no longer need you for everything––well, just some things. But they have their wings, and they have chosen to fly. 

That’s what we have raised them to do––leave the nest even though it is unbearable to think about. 

My daughter got married, and I was no longer a part-time empty nester. She made it official.   I sat at the table watching my husband and my daughter dance and wondered how I was going to make it as a mom with no children in the home. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle entrusting a man my daughter fell in love with to take care of her. After all, who was going to be able to do it better than me? She had officially left my responsibility and now had someone else who was going to be responsible for her.   I felt a part of me break that night, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to let go, but life has a way of allowing us the ability to grow and open our borders. 

My son left to go abroad to a third-world country for college and future career, and I had to trust in God to watch over and protect him because there was nothing I could do for him being halfway around the world. At least when he was at college, it was merely a few hours’ car ride to get to him. Now, he lives his best life––without his mom to coddle him. 

My world may have spun around the sun for twenty-seven years, bringing change and new stages to adapt to and learn to grow from. With it comes the biggest blessing of them all. As I lay in bed while my husband sleeps, I watch a baby monitor on my belly as I look over my 15-month-old granddaughter, who is having her first sleepover with Nona and Papa. I wonder how I did it twenty-seven years ago. How I was able to sleep when the baby slept. I’m thinking to myself, I’m not sure I can go to sleep. I just want to watch her. I’ve been entrusted to take care of this little person for twenty-four hours, and I’m terrified and I recall the same fear I had when her mother was so small and dependent. 

Yes, many stages in life make you question your abilities, but if there is one thing that rings true, you get through each stage, and life goes on, and if you’re lucky, they come back full circle, and you are reminded that you are stronger now than you once were and the next stage has nothing to be afraid of, because girl, you made it through the last stage, you’ll make it through this one and the next one. 

This was written by our contributing writer, Shannon Hrimnak.