My Heart in Manhattan

I've talked to him nearly every day since he left, usually more than once. I have never loved or been so achingly proud of him. The last time I saw him (in person), he was racing to catch up with the other boys in the House of Reagan at The King's College, bound for a Circle Five boat tour on the Hudson River. His tie was flying back over his shoulder, and at the last minute he looked back at us, smiled and waved. Then we couldn't see him anymore. Other parents leave their children safely in a dorm room housed in some bucolic setting, with sloping green lawns and the ivory towers of academia. Not us. We left our son walking down a sidewalk in Manhattan, looking back over his shoulder, grinning and waving.

I would not have chosen any other way.

Not that this has been easy. Not that even he is entirely sold on it yet.

But the Lord in His Providence has led us here. And the lessons so far are both painful and sweet. I can't even write them yet, because they are still being written in life. I don't want to smudge the ink on what is still so fresh and incomplete. But all of it I am storing in my heart, and all of it matters so very, very much and is so different than I ever could have imagined. I praise God for His story, His mercy, His faithfulness and His very real presence right now.