The Grief of an Empty Nest

The kids are grown and gone, and the house feels different in a way it hasn't in twenty years. Learn why grieving an empty nest is normal for a Christian parent, and what the arrows of Psalm 127 say about the work you already finished.The empty nest is one of the more disorienting transitions in adult life. The house feels different in a way it hasn't in twenty years. You walk past a bedroom that's made up and stays made up all week. The rhythm you built your whole life around, the practices and the late-night talks in the kitchen, isn't there anymore.Here's what makes it confusing. You're proud of your kid and you wanted this. You worked twenty years for exactly this outcome, and you miss them anyway. Both of those are true at the same time, and most people have no idea what to do with that. So you stand around in a house with more room than you know what to do with.This episode opens with Jill Savage, whose house was full of noise for more than twenty years. Four kids will do that. There were carpools and somebody always needing something, and it wore her out plenty of days. It was also her whole life. Then came the morning she had known was coming and still wasn't ready for. The kids were grown and gone, and the house was empty. She poured a cup of coffee and stood in her own kitchen while something rose up in her that she didn't expect.Psalm 127:3-5 gives us the picture that reframes it: "Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands." Start with the gift, because that's where the grief is coming from. Nobody mourns something that meant little to them. Then stay with the image. An arrow is built to leave the quiver, and every part of it is shaped for the moment of release. A warrior who never fires one has a nice collection and an unfinished job. The releasing was always the reason for the making. So the empty house is what the work looks like when it succeeds.Knowing something was supposed to happen doesn't cancel the grief over it. Every good ending has loss buried in it somewhere. Jesus wept at Lazarus's tomb minutes before raising him, and He knew how it would end. So you can believe every word of Psalm 127 and still stand in a made-up bedroom and cry. Bart shares his own version of this, the night he and Katharine sat down to a table set for two with a whole lot of table left over, and how a career spent across from people in grief still didn't prepare him for that.BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:Why an empty house is evidence that you finished the work God gave you What the arrow image in Psalm 127 says about releasing your kids Why believing the promise and grieving the loss belong to the same faithGive the grief its time. Don't rush yourself through it, and don't let anybody suggest that being proud of your kid means you're finished missing them. You raised them to go.Share This Episode:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/324Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemailWant to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast.https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/Rate and Reviewhttps://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/Connect with BartFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylivesWebsite: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.comFeeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe.