ANXIOUSLY His

Hello, August.

You bring your usual anxiety and stress of athletic team tryouts, back to school necessities like shopping, meetings, and events, intolerable heat, early morning alarms, and life-long recurring nightmares about missing college class for an entire semester minus the first week and then having to sit for the final exam.

You’re not my favorite month. Not by far.

August, with your new beginnings, makes the controller in me rear up in a mighty way. Your unknown makes me uneasy, August. So, if I pray hard enough for what I want … if I plan far enough in advance … if I’m uber organized … everything will fall into place like I’ve imagined, right? My children will have a smooth start to school: all their hard summer work will pay off in wins and varsity jerseys; their schedules will align with the courses and professors they desperately want; their social relationships will be wholesome and edifying.

Oh, how this line of thinking has failed me every.single.time.

So, I’m trying my best to approach you, August, differently this year. I’m still praying those heart’s desires over my children, but I’m also trying really hard (seriously, this is hard for me and takes a lot of work) to relinquish my dreams for my children to God, whose dreams for them may look entirely different than mine. You see, I want my kids to be happy. God wants my kids to be whole.

And speaking of whole, I’m trying to remind myself that I am a whole person that exists outside of my children. August, you tend to me leave me feeling lost, on the personal side. I have a life that exists outside of my kids’ needs and schedules. I have entered a phase of life where these humans I’ve raised can and should be doing more for themselves than I am doing for them.

Most importantly, I am reminding myself – often moment by moment – that God is in control of all of our lives. August, you will not break us. God has plans for us, if this mama will just get out of the way and let them unfold as He sees fit.

New month. New school year. New lessons to learn and adventures to embark upon.

Hello, August. Please be kind.

Anxiously His,

Nicki