Letting Go

Letting Go…

Theology in the Trenches

By Kathleen Kjolhaug

Skies were gray, snow was falling, and traffic was slow.   Heading off to the airport with our son, who would be gone for the next five months, was difficult.  Silence prevailed as we made our way along the Minneapolis freeway.  A car off the beaten track here, a stalled engine there, and with traffic proceeding at about 40 mph, we kept pace with the pack.

It was nothing new bringing one of ours to an airport; we’d done it before.  This time, however, the circumstances were different.  You see, this particular flight was half way around the world, and he would be traveling without a group or comrade with whom to utilize as a safety net. In hand he clutched the name of a hotel and a person to contact once he arrived.  He was to hail a cab from the airport and head to the hotel for the night. The following morning, someone would meet him and take him to his destination where he would be teaching.  It was getting to the hotel that bothered him, and it bothered me.

Anyone coming off a plane in a country where people are desperate for a bit of income knows what it’s like. Add to the scene his inability to communicate in the native language, and the situation would only compound itself.  Our best hope was that he’d meet someone on the plane willing to help out. “It’ll be a piece of cake,” his dad assured him. The words seemed to make him, his father, feel better.  It did nothing for me, and it appeared to do little for our son.

As we entered the airport, switched a few bucks into the country of destination currency, and weighed in, we began to see a bounce of excitement in his step. He calmed; we calmed.  It was that simple.  Travel was in the air, and if one ever forgets the feeling, one need only enter the international area of an airport.  It sort of makes you want to jump on board!  Giving our final hugs and last piece of advice, I warned, “Don’t drink the water!”

The next hurdle would be to await word that he’d arrived.  Approximately twenty-four hours later, we got the message. “In my hotel.  Arrived safely!”  Just hours later, the second message revealed that the advice given by his father and me had not been heeded or the advice given was wrong altogether.  Somehow, it brought comfort to me knowing that his father’s advice went south as fast as mine did.  It said, “Just had some toast and coffee!”  (In other words…I drank the water!)  “And, tell dad that no, it was not easy getting a taxi! Even though I had help, I was booted out of the first one and had to sit alone for 15 minutes in the second one until a driver finally came and took me to the hotel!”

Had I to do it over, I would have told him to enjoy the coffee, slipped him a ten dollar bill, and made sure he knew to use it as a tip for that taxi driver...thus avoiding the first boot.  It simply does not come naturally for financially strapped college kids to flash extra cash.

Lord, in Psalm 27:1-2 you pose two questions that serve as reminders as to where I need place my trust, and in Whom I need to place my trust when letting go.  It calms me when I read,

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Oh how we try to equip, teach, protect, plan, and finagle the journeys of our children in life.  In the mean time, you teach, reach, provide for, and love them through the things they must learn in the equipping process.

.

And, just when my mind was at peace, yet a third e-mail arrived.  It said, “Lots of baboons over here.  They told me to not make direct eye contact, or they will attack.” 

And Lord, I have just one more motherly request.  “Could you please help him remember to not make eye contact with the baboons?”  Amen.