Never Letting Go

It was 1988 and my 8th grade year. My family and I lived in the Bible belt of the Ozarks in southwest Missouri. I attended Pershing Junior High and I was a good student. I got good grades, made the National Junior Honor Society and managed not to cause too much trouble. I was quiet and shy and spent many hours reading in my room listening to top 40 music. We had moved many times over the course of my then 13 years. I was never popular or outgoing, so I certainly wasn't surrounded by hoards of friends, but the Lord always saw fit to give me one or two really good friends that I could count on and be myself with.

 I had always attended public school with the exception of Kindergarten and my 6th grade year where I was blessed to go to an area Lutheran Elementary School.  The oldest of three kids, I was the one blazing the adolescent trail for my younger siblings 3 and 7 years younger than me. I joked that I got to break my parents in.

This particular year was odd. We had moved back to Springfield, Missouri after having lived two other places since the first time we lived in Springfield. Things were familiar but things were different. We were in a different school district so the school I attended didn't have familiar faces I went to grade school with. No matter - I was shy and awkward back then too so it's not like I was stewing on the "good ole' days".  But the Lord blessed me as he had before and gave me two friends that were faithful in their friendship.

It was right before Christmas break if I remember correctly and I was coming home on the bus. I was sitting alone which I don't remember as unusual but I did find it unusual when a boy sat down next to me in my seat. There were plenty of other seats available. This boy in particular was "a jock" and had no business willingly conversing with "a nerd".  I don't remember what we talked about but I remember  being nervous and shy. He was flirting - definitely.  I was sweating - definitely. But I was also excited to have someone popular pay attention to me, who was hardly noticed most of the time.

I had a necklace on that day and he took notice of it and asked me about it. I think it was one of those half necklaces that your best friend wears the other half of? So I was explaining this to him while my heart was pounding and then he reached over to me as if to touch the necklace and instead - groped my chest.

This was scary for me now - I felt very violated and didn't know what to do. I wanted to scream but my voice was lost somewhere in my gut. My stop was coming up soon and if I could just get home and tell my Mom…

Mom wasn't home.

I went downstairs and sat in front of the TV. It was "Little House on the Prairie" and I don't remember the particulars of the episode but it happened to be about a character (one you only see once and never again) who gets molested or something. You can only imagine the condition I was in when Mom finally showed up from running her errands. I was a mess.

It snowballed from there. Dad arrived home and was told. Phone calls to the school were made and it didn't take long to find out the boy had been suspended for two weeks. I didn't have to ride the bus anymore but got rides from Mom or Dad. I went back to school the next day only to have to field a million questions from the other jocks and worse - his girlfriend (who didn't seem so surprised as a matter of fact). What started as an awkward year just got worse. It was better before when no one payed attention to me than now with all this unwanted interaction! Thankfully, my two God-given friends remained by my side and I survived the year.

I may have made it through the year but high school was looming ahead.  The thought of continuing on with these morons (my two friends excepted) made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it.

I remember sitting on the bed in my room - brass headboard, floral bedspread, floral wallpaper that reminded me of a field of wildflowers, built in custom shelves my parents had surprised me with when we first moved in to house all my Sweet Valley High books,  my rocking chair in the corner - and I leafed through the Martin Luther Preparatory School catalog I had picked up when I had gone on a tour of it back in 6th grade while attending the LES. I looked carefully at all the pictures of smiling teens in classes, playing sports, singing in choir, acting in drama. I read cover to cover all about the high standards of a Christian education, the quality of the professors, the variety of the extracurricular activities offered, the dorm rooms and cafeteria food and the friendships made. I had noticed a difference that year I had gone to an LES - everyone of us were friends there - our common faith in Christ had a noticeable impact on the quality of my relationships there that even I noticed at a young age. I had also grown spiritually in that short time. Having daily Bible lessons and opening devotions, Bible memory work, starting confirmation and attending daily chapel had all contributed to a sudden spiritual growth.  I yearned for that again. Could this be the answer? 

And so it was decided - by me anyway. Now to tell my Mom since Dad wasn't home yet. Sure, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin was really far away from Springfield, Missouri but I wanted to get far away from my peers here. My parents knew how hard this year had been for me. Shoot, it had to have been hard on them!

My parents probably have a better recollection of how things went from there. I only remember that after confronting my Mom, I got the old, "we'll discuss this with your Father when he gets home" shpeel and I think she may have turned her back to me to wipe her eyes.  The next thing I remember was preparing to go! I had a black trunk we were filling up with new dorm bedding and matching towels and everything a 14 year old girl could need for dorm living! And off I went along with my "New Kids on the Block" poster!!

This was not a decision we had made years ago. This was not something I had been looking forward to since forever. I wasn't trying to get away from my family - I loved my family! I wasn't a problem child that needed to be sent off somewhere to get fixed. This decision came about mainly from my unhappiness and the events leading up to high school. It came from low self esteem, social clumsiness and a desire to want something deeper and lasting. But the reality is, mine wasn't the final decision to be made. It was my parents whom God had put in charge of my physical, social, intellectual and most importantly spiritual well being. They said yes. They footed the bill year after year. They flew me home and back for vacations or arranged a carpool. They supported my decision. They let. me. go.

My old alma mater of MLPS doesn't exist anymore. It amalgamated with the old Northwestern Prep to make what is now Luther Preparatory School in Watertown, Wisconsin where both my brother and sister went on to graduate from. Wayne never went, choosing instead to stay home in Calgary and go to his local public high school despite the fact his older brother Jeff attended MLPS and graduated the spring before I started in the fall. Jeff has three daughters now going to LPS with my own son starting in the fall- 3 weeks from now, in fact. So I find myself in the shoes of what my own parents once wore. An odd feeling.

So now as I live these last few weeks before he moves out to be 971 miles away from home, I'm torn as my parents must have been once. To keep him here for myself. To fill my wants, my needs. To let him define my identity. To keep him under the watchful eye of his father and me and continue to keep him in a safe cocoon we all are familiar with. Or … to say yes. To foot the bill. To fly him home on holiday or arrange carpool. To meet at Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving (as I used to do). Supporting his decision. It's time to let. him. go.

My heart hurts.

Thank you, Dad and Mom. Thank you for letting me go back in 1989 when it must not have been easy. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for footing the bills and sending me spending money. Thank you for praying for me. Thanks for the calling cards and coming to my games whenever you could. Thanks for driving all that way and  meeting me at Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving. Thank you for listening to me cry and be hormonal over the phone and restraining yourselves from coming to get me the next day. Thanks for taking me and my friends out to eat when you'd come visit. Thanks for the cards and letters in the mail. Thanks for the care packages and for individually wrapping the leaf cookies in bubble wrap every fall so that I could still enjoy them. 

I know that you never really let me go. You were just trusting in the Lord that He would keep me in His care. If anything, you beefed up the prayer warrior parent role and put it in His hands. You knew I would be connected to the means of grace daily and surrounded by professors and tutors who taught and disciplined with proper law and gospel. You expected me to mess up because what teen doesn't? but that I'd be messing up with a spiritual safety net to protect me.

Our Lord has been faithful and he heard all those prayers. Prep gave me a solid, Lutheran education, the best of friends, a chance to bring me out of my shell, to develop my God-given talents and look to Him for my self worth and confidence that I had been lacking. It was not without screwup, mishap, or poor choices. But God never let me go. He had used an awful 8th grade year to bring about a desire to go to Prep and used it for His good.

May I have the strength to now do the same with my own son.  Lord, give me the ability to deny my own selfish wants and desires and simply reaffirm that he's been yours all along. Comfort me knowing that you will use him and whatever experience he has there, good and bad, to grow and develop him into the man you would have him be. Thank you for never letting me go all those years ago just as you continue to hold onto all your children through faith in Jesus, Amen.