Letting go

Tuesday I hit the "send" button on my computer which launched my newly completed manuscript through cyber space to my editor's desk. There are always mixed emotions with such an action: joy that another story is written; apprehension as to how it will be received; a hint of disappointment that my time with those particular characters is now done...; and eagerness to dive into the next project (which will have a WWII setting, something I've wanted to do for a long time). Sometimes it can be hard to balance all of those different feelings in one heart.

I can remember battling those same emotions when I was pregnant with my third daughter. She was my summer baby (in fact, she celebrated a birthday last week), and unlike my two winter pregnancies when I hardly gained weight, I blew up like a balloon. I was ENORMOUS. Uncomfortable. Bordering on miserable. There were moments I actually moaned aloud, "When will this baby come out so I don't have to carry it around anymore?" I was thrilled to become a mother again, although a little apprehensive about the necessary labor (I don't give birth easily). And as eager as I was to meet this new little soul, I also experienced the sting of disappointment, realizing I'd never be as close to the child as I was while it was nestled in my womb, beneath my heart. From the moment they're born, they grow apart from you. So giving birth can be a little bittersweet.

Now I watch that youngest daughter--a young woman expecting her first child in just a few more weeks--go through the same emotions. Being summer and very hot (we've experienced record highs for several days in a row), she's so uncomfortable. One minute she'll ask, "Can't it come out now?" And the next she says, "I like feeling the baby move inside me. It's like we're one." Yes, the parting can be hard. But eventually that child has to enter the world...just as the story characters have to find their way from my computer into the hands of readers.

Life is a constant series of letting go. Of moving forward and treasuring the steps left behind.

Below is a picture of my daughter. The setting is a Kansas sunset. So appropriate, given the stage of her pregnancy. Yet every sunset is followed by a sunrise--a new beginning. I anticipate the beginning of life blossoming within my daughter's womb. Funny how every goodbye leads to a hello...

May God bless you muchly as you journey with Him~Kim