LWG...are you ready?

Today, I shared the following devo straight from my heart with the readers over at LACED WITH GRACE. It is entitled, "Are you ready?" I would like to share it with you here on my personal blog as well...

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This week, I am rushing around the house, getting things ready for my son’s big day. That’s right, my youngest son is getting married tomorrow! Not only is he getting married…but he is marrying one of our own LWG writers…that’s right, Krista Moody is going to be Krista Adams in just 24 hours!

My hands have been busy getting the last minute things ready for the rehearsal dinner, but my heart and my mind have been racing back in time. As I look across the room at my 20 year old son, who has become a man, my mind races back to when he was just a child. The memories of the little league games, the camping trips and the times that he would come in the house from playing to present me with a most beautiful flower…a dying dandelion weed!

The collage of memories just can’t fade from my mind. The birthday cakes that I have baked for him. The many band aids that I have applied to scraped knees. The numerous bedtime stories, especially “Horton the Elephant!” The teacher/parent conferences at school. His prom. His graduation. The day we packed him up to leave for college.

In all of it, I played the leading role in his life as his mother. The one he came running to when he was sad, mad or hurt. This was my job all throughout his growing up years. But now he is grown up and it is now time for me to pass along the leading role to a different leading lady in his life.

Tomorrow, as I pin on his corsage to his tuxedo, no doubt one of my final words to him will be, “Are you ready?” and I know he will say, “Yes I am”. He will stand there, watching his bride walk down the aisle to meet him, he will take her by the hands and promise to love and cherish her forever. As he slips the golden ring on her finger, his heart will be knit to hers as one. He is ready. The question is, “am I?”

God’s Word says “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

Am I ready to hand off the role of leading lady to another? I am. My purpose and time of being his caretaker is done. It is now time for my role to be something different. It’s not a “bad” different, it is just different. It is a new chapter of our lives, one that I embrace with love and joy.

Tomorrow, before he walks that aisle and he tells me that he is ready for this change…would it be alright though if I ask him for just one more hug?

This is my 3rd son to get married, and for you Mom’s out there that are getting ready to go thru this, I would like to say that even though it is a bittersweet moment, a moment full of joy but yet sadness, I promise you, that God will carry you thru. Your relationship with your son (or daughter) does not end at the marriage ceremony, it only begins, except instead of loving a son, you know have the privelege of loving a son and a new daughter! Rejoice!