Life at the Altar: Help for Saying Good-bye to Our Children

After reading so much on Facebook of the trials of sending that first child off to college, I was reminded of a sermon I preached in August of 2000 when my youngest headed off to UCA for her freshman year. If you have one leaving home for any reason, maybe these reflections will help. I called the sermon Go with God. My text was Psalm 121. I would encourage you to do some kind of send off with your child and read Psalm 121 over that child as a blessing.

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Looking out my window, see you playing in the leaves;

It’s amazing how a little girl means all the world to me.

When I tell you that I love you, I love you more than words can say.

Smile, say cheese, pretty please, I wanna take your picture;

How’d you ever get so big, oh I gotta take your picture.

Hold on to the memory before the whole thing slips away.

I wish I could save these moments, put ‘em in a jar,

I wish I could stop the world from turning,

Keep things just the way they are.

I wish I could shelter you from everything

Not pure and sweet and good,

I know I can’t, I know I can’t,

But I wish I could.[1]

This is not a day I have looked forward to. We take our youngest to college today. From now on, when I drive up the hill to my house after work, her little red car won’t be in the driveway. When I shout for her at the other end of the house, there’ll be no answer. When I stick my head in her room, she won’t be there. When we sit down to supper, her chair will be empty. The phone will ring less. The piano will sit silent. And if I want to see her strawberry-blond, freckled-face countenance, I’ll have to look at pictures. I know, I know, it’s not like she’s dead or anything. We’ll still see her a lot. But anybody who’s sent a kid to college knows that once they walk out that door, things are never quite the same.

Just two years ago we sent our first one off to college. Man, did I miss him! We moved his stuff up to Jonesboro early in the month, but he didn’t leave until later. And a couple of weeks later, when I watched his little gray truck roll down Meadowmere Terrace on his way to college and independence, it darn near killed me. But I survived. I think it helped having one still left at home.

And that one leaves today. And will I ever miss her. I wasn’t so sure what to think when she was born. She was, after all, a girl. And I knew nothing of girls. Having been raised among three brothers and having a two-year-old son when she came into the world, I knew all about boys. I knew about wrestling and playing ball, about getting dirty and eating like a pig, about bodily functions and acting crude. And I knew how to discipline a boy too. They take a spanking pretty good. I could yell at a boy when I needed too. But how do you discipline a girl? When I saw her for the very first time, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to yell at her. And I wasn’t sure I could spank her either. So I was kind of nervous about having a girl. Could I really enter her world? Other than the GI Joe I played with in the mid-60s, I’d never been around dolls in my life. And even then GI Joe was no girl doll. He was always shooting the enemy and blowing stuff up. He’d have had no trouble wiping out Barbie if he thought she was a Communist. He was one bad dude. But her girl world was gonna be different. Dolls and tea parties, Kaboodles and My Little Ponies, jewelry and makeup, dresses and ribbons and lace. I hoped she’d at least like sports and was so pleased when she did. But this girl thing was gonna be a whole new world for me. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to understand girls. And after eighteen years I can honestly say: I don’t understand them any better. But I wouldn’t trade her for all the boys in the world. She is truly my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased. And she begins a new chapter in her life today. I’m happy for her, but I’m a little sad for myself. Our nest feels awfully empty.

Maybe that’s why that Collin Raye song appeals to me today. He sings about special moments with his little girl in the present tense. I’m using the song to look back. “I wish I could save these moments, put ‘em in a jar. / I wish I could stop the world from turning, keep things just the way they are. / I wish I could shelter you from everything not pure and sweet and good. / I know I can’t. I know I can’t, but I wish I could.”

That’s a good song for mamas and daddies who have to say good-bye. But I’ve found another good song too. It’s a Bible song. It’s Psalm 121, and I invite you to open your Bible to it this morning. Psalm 121 is the second of a group of fifteen psalms known as the “Songs of Ascent”—psalms marked by rural flavor and simple piety; psalms associated with the pilgrim’s sojourn to Jerusalem for special holy seasons. It’s a beautiful psalm for any journey, and it’s a wonderful way to say good-bye. Hear the word of the Lord … (read the text).

Life is a series of hellos and good-byes, isn’t it? And the good-byes are usually the hard part. Most of us know something of saying good-bye to a loved one who is going on a trip without us. Seeing our first-born off to that first day of kindergarten. Waving to our child as the church van pulls out of the parking lot on the way to a week of summer camp. Watching our child in the rear-view mirror as we leave the campus at which we’ve left her. Waving good-bye as our child and her husband pull away from their wedding reception on their way to new places, new friends, and a new life. Giving that last hug to old friends who are moving to a new opportunity in another part of the country. Even standing over a gurney, kissing our loved one before he’s rolled off into an operating room. Times like these are like the time when a trapeze artist lets go of the bar and hangs in mid-air, ready to catch another support: it’s a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, of extraordinary aliveness—a wild mixture of emotion.[2] Our loved one is moving out from under our protective wings and watchful eye. This requires a different kind of good-bye from the kind that says, “Bye, honey, I’m off to Wal-Mart. Be right back.” How do we say good-bye at the big transition points of life? Psalm 121 can help us.

Psalm 121 originated as a short liturgy for saying good-bye.[3] Perhaps originally used to bless travelers on their way up the mountains to Jerusalem, the psalm has become a bon voyage for many journeys—a wonderful way to say good-bye.

The psalm is very optimistic, but it doesn’t have its head in the sand. The psalm recognizes the dangers. This is no escapist psalm. The psalms are just too honest. Even amid the peace of green pastures and still waters, David acknowledged in the 23rd Psalm that he still must negotiate “the valley of the shadow of death” and the presence of his enemies. Like that hopeful psalm, Psalm 121 never claims that the journey will be easy either.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.” The mountains leading to Jerusalem have a breathtaking quality about them, but there’s danger up there too. There are idolatrous shrines in the high places that seduce the traveler to be unfaithful to the living God and to worship false gods instead. There are steep cliffs and treacherous ledges where one slip could mean sudden death. There are dark passes where thieves and robbers lurk. There’s the blazing sun by day, and the cold, creeping chill of night—not to mention hungry bears on the prowl, and things that go bump in the night. Mountains are beautiful. Hills are awesome. But there’s danger and evil up there too.

There are dangers in any journey really. Will the airplane land safely? Will we be able to drive through the fog without an accident? Will the freedom and new ideas of college steal away faith and virtue from the young student? Will the surgeon find something he didn’t expect? Will the young couple make it or wind up in divorce court? Will the child sink or swim in his new opportunity? Will the promotion and impending move mean success or failure? There are dangers in any journey. And perhaps what scares us most of all is that we can’t always protect our loved ones from the dangers of their journey.

We have to let them go—danger or not. People do not belong to us; they belong to God. They must live their own lives—follow God’s leading as best they understand it, whether we like it or not, whether it looks dangerous or not. We have to learn to say good-bye. We have to let them go. Even the dangers of the journey hold the potential to build character and maturity into the one we love and let go, but it’s still a little scary when it’s time to say good-bye.

That’s why we really say more than good-bye, we say, “Go with God.” Psalm 121 recognizes the danger of the journey, but its focus is on the God of the journey.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?” Well, it doesn’t come from the hills, as majestic and powerful as they may to be. “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven of earth.” Why look to the hills when we can look to the Lord. The Lord is larger than the hills, broader than the plains, deeper than the sea, higher than the heavens. The Lord can hold the world in His hand. He can spin a planet on His finger. Don’t mistake creation for the Creator. God is so above it all that He didn’t even have to break a sweat to make the stuff we call creation. God spoke it into existence, and He made it all from nothing. As Walter Sims put it:

Away out there, alone, above,

Without anything to make it of;

Without a saw, hammer, nail or screws

Or anything to fasten it to,

God simply spoke a word or two,

And the world came boldly into view.

So whether your journey takes you to the hills or the plains, to the next town or the other side of the world, every step you take will land you and your loved one in the realm of the One who made all things. We can never get out of God’s territory or out of God’s reach. Remember that the next time you say good-bye.

And remember this too: the Lord watches over us. The psalmist describes God as a “watcher” or “keeper” six times in this brief psalm. This reminds us that God is no impersonal executive, locked away in his office, shielded by an attack secretary, unaware or uninterested in the lives of his employees. On the contrary, as our “watcher,” God takes the journey with us—a very present help every step of the way. The duty of a watchman is to guard us, to keep an eye out for us, to protect us, and to stay awake at all times while he’s on duty. The Lord is such a watchman, claims the psalm, and He is always on duty.

“The Lord watches over you.”

“He who watches over you will … neither slumber nor sleep”

“The Lord will keep you from all harm” (better translated “evil”).

“He will watch over your life.”

“The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore”

(which means from birth through death and all the time in between).

At first hearing this sounds like a sham, doesn’t it? Either the Lord’s not a very good watchman or the psalmist isn’t telling us the truth. We’ve all known lots of people—good Christians even—who have been on the receiving end of one kind of harm or another, people who have been battered about by the evil in our world—the victims of crime or disease, persecution or untimely death. So what’s the deal? Is the psalm making us a promise that the Lord can’t keep?

Not at all. Neither this psalm nor the Bible as a whole promises a life free from worry, injury, accident, or illness. What it does promise is preservation from the evil of such things. As Eugene Peterson puts it: “All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us.” [4] That’s the promise of the psalm—that God will keep evil from moving in and taking over our lives: “The Lord will keep you from all evil.” Sounds an awful lot like the prayer Jesus taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And that’s what this psalm promises—a deliverance from all the evil that assaults us in this world. No matter what bad things come your way as you journey through life, none of that will ever separate you from God’s love or God’s purposes for your life.

And that’s important to remember. When things are going badly, it’s easy to conclude that God has taken His eye off of us, or that He’s snoring soundly, unaware of our troubles, or even that He’s shifted His attention to some other Christian more interesting or more committed than we are. This psalm keeps us from jumping to that conclusion and making that mistake. “The Lord who watches over you … will neither slumber nor sleep.” He watches over you day and night. “The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” I hope you hear the good news in that! You are never out of His care, never out of His sight, or never out of His reach. Never. “The Lord watches over you.”

This psalm is so helpful in reminding us that our Christian lives are not defined by our struggles and our stumbles, our hardships and our trials; our Christian lives are defined by the watching, guarding Lord who keeps us always in His care. Remember that the next time you say good-bye. Remember that you’re really saying, “Go with God”—because God is certainly going along too.

I share all this today knowing that this won’t make your good-byes any easier. Saying good-bye at the big transitions of life are, like that trapeze artist hanging in mid-air, colored with a wild mixture of emotion—no matter what side of the good-bye you’re on. There’s nothing wrong with tears. Some degree of anxiety is only natural. A mixture of grief and gladness is common too. Experiencing the power of this psalm won’t rob our good-byes of their rich emotion. But the psalm can help us say our good-byes with more confidence—confidence in the God whose eye never misses a thing, whose heart never wavers a bit, and whose care never ceases for a second. That’s why we can say more than good-bye, we can say “Go with God.” And we can be equally sure that our God will remain just as faithful to those who stay behind as He is to those who make the journey. When we know the God of this psalm, we can say our good-byes with confidence.

"Come to the edge," he said.

They said, "We are afraid."

"Come to the edge," he said.

They said, "We will fall."

"Come to the edge," he said.

They came. He pushed them,

and they flew. [5]

“The Lord will keep you from all evil—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” Amen.