Gospel Hope for College Drop-Off

In a few short days, I’ll pack up the dorm essentials, pretend to be totally fine, and send my oldest child off to college. While my husband and I are full of joy and gratitude for our son’s growth and development, a deep parental ache accompanies all the packed bags. My friends with older kids have warned me: The tears after college drop-off are exceptionally salty.

Parenting seems to fit awkwardly inside the Christian ethos, and I’m feeling it anew as I prepare to launch my oldest child. The gospel offers healing and redemption in this life or the next for every peculiar pain the human heart endures. “Everything sad is going to come untrue,” as Sally Lloyd-Jones, borrowing from J.R.R. Tolkien, puts it. In some situations, this is easy to envision. With the separation that death brings, for instance, we have the hope of knowing our (Christian) loved one will meet us in heaven. But parenting feels different.

These children we pour ourselves into and love so deeply eventually leave—and they don’t come back. The painful underpinning is this: That’s the goal. Apparently, I’ll know I’ve arrived when the child who once happily climbed into my lap and found his dearest shelter in my presence waves goodbye and carries on without me.

As I help my son move 10 hours from home, this question erupts from the depths of my heart: How does God redeem the particular pains of parenting—things that the passage of time takes away, like the sweet joys of childhood?

I’ve felt this sadness since the early days of mothering, so 10 years ago, I emailed our beloved pastor, Sandy Willson, seeking wisdom. He was well into grandparenthood, and I found encouragement in his perspective. Now, as I embark on this new phase of parenting, his seasoned words are helpful all over again.

New Roles, Next Generation

Sandy began by shifting my perspective:

First of all, your kids are not leaving you. They’re one day coming back to you with more kids! Allison and I are having the time of our lives, not just with our grandchildren, but also with our children and their spouses. They need us and we can help and encourage them. We bear their burdens and pray for them and enjoy them immensely. These may be some of our favorite parental years.

His words highlight God’s wisdom in instituting the changing roles of the family. The way he paints it, I can see a uniquely life-giving calling ahead, rich with new ways of relating to and supporting my adult children and potentially their spouses and children.

I hear echoes of Deuteronomy 4:9: “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.” My role to point my children to God through Christ is no less important now than it was when they were 5 or 10 years old.

My role to point my children to God through Christ is no less important now than it was when they were 5 or 10 years old.

Not only that, but Sandy points to the potential for more years of playfulness and snuggles from grandchildren, a phenomenon about which all the grandparents I know rave with incredible joy. One God-authored surprise written into the code of healthy multigenerational family life is that there’s a niche delight in the grandparent-grandchild relationship. Maybe third-generation snuggles are a gift all their own.

Continuing in the Faith

“Secondly, the stage you’re in now is very dear and precious, but you’ll find that the next stage (although you look back fondly on this one) is even more dear to you,” Sandy wrote. “With deep satisfaction you’ll begin to see clearly the difference it makes to have been reared an Echols in the way they approach temptation and peer pressure. You will enjoy counseling and encouraging them and learning from them.”

Trading in the snuggles of the younger years for counseling young adults seemed like a hard sell when I first read Sandy’s words. But now, as three of my five children are in their teen and young-adult years, I’m beginning to sense that deep satisfaction Sandy mentioned.

Second Timothy 3:14–15 says, “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” As parents, we have the privilege of teaching our children the gospel and acquainting them with the Scriptures, trusting the Lord to make them wise for salvation.

Maybe third-generation snuggles are a gift all their own.

When our children leave our homes, Lord willing, we have the blessing of seeing them continue in what we’ve taught them, working out their own salvation even as we continue to work out ours. Paul encourages Timothy to remember how his mother and grandmother nurtured him in the faith, “knowing from whom [he] learned it.”

We can model this by showing gratitude for those who taught us the faith, and we hope our children will do the same. Our efforts to point our children to Jesus throughout childhood can create a sweet connection that carries into adulthood.

Siblings for Eternity

“Thirdly, we must always remember that we are our children’s servants—to the point that we will lay down our lives for them,” Sandy wrote. He continued,

It is our task, as we pass off the scene, to push them forward to be the most faithful servants of the Lord they can be. And we know that the great Family Reunion still awaits us in glory, where our joy will be unspeakably glorious, and our children, as brother and sister saints, will always be grateful for their Christian parents.

Sandy’s vision of the Christian family reminds me there’s a deeper joy in parenting than sweet snuggles with toddlers and shared laughter with teenagers. We have the hope of heaven and the unspeakable joy of spending eternity with our children who are in Christ.

Even now, Jesus is creating a place for us all to feast and live together as a family—his family. John 14:1–3 says,

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

There’s perhaps no greater comfort as I leave my son in his new dorm that I’ve worked so hard to prepare than looking ahead to the heavenly room Jesus is preparing for him even now. Not only that, but Jesus is putting together a room for me too.

As siblings with one another and with Christ, my son and I will experience familial joys the likes of which this earth has never seen. Truly, the Lord will wipe every last tear from my eyes—even the ones with exceptionally high salt content.