Parents have 938 weeks to prepare their kids for the world. 938.
My wife and I are out of time.
Our daughters turn eighteen this month. One is enrolled in college. The other has joined the United States Navy. They will dip their pens into the ink well of life and write a story uniquely their own. Meantime, we helplessly peer through the hourglass as the tiny grains of sand dwindle at startling speed. I want to reach for it and flip it over; reset it. Try again.
Change. It’s equal parts exciting and excruciating.
Weeks before he passed away, my friend Steve reached out to me and asked, “How can I pray for you?” Knowing Steve this didn’t surprise me. His body was riddled with cancer and yet…”How can I pray for you?” “Well,” I responded. “You can pray for Polly and me as we enter this chapter we never thought would come so quickly” Steve instructed me that we are to give our children to God. He called it the hardest thing he and his wife have ever had to do. Harder than getting sick. As he spoke, I was reminded of the dedication I wrote to my girls in my first book. 
Our children are gifts, but they don’t belong to us.
I don’t always trust God. Now it’s all I can do. He has good plans for our daughters. He has good plans for your kids too. We want many things for our children. We want to protect them, head off the hurts, and fix what is broken. Today, we loosen our grip — free them to love God more than they love their friends, our family and their comfort.
It’s a slow let-go. They may fall. They may fall more than once. Who better to catch them than the One we count on to catch ourselves?
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