Another Lesson In Letting Go!

When Harris and I became parents 20 years ago, we started the process of learning how to let go before even really giving it a whole lot of thought. Right away we let our children go back into the hands of the nurses before we really wanted to. We symbolically gave them over to God in church services. We learned how to trust nursery workers and baby-sitters when we needed a break. We have watched them move up the ranks in different schools, let them drive cars, and go into dating relationships. Then we started facing the really big things when we let Haley go to Australia and New Zealand. When Heath opted to leave the football program here and live out his senior year back in our home town, we learned how to parent from afar. We took him to Moody Bible Institute and let go of him again. Then Haley asked if she could go to Africa. Slowly but surely, whether we wanted to or not, we were definitely learning how to let go. Every single time it was hard because it was a new circumstance, but I can honestly say that every single time we got through the pangs of pain and the shedding of tears, there was an underlying sense of peace about it.

The last two weeks of our lives, we’ve been learning how to REALLY let go. At the end of my last blog entry, I alluded to something that we were dealing with, but it was just too personal and painful at the time to talk about publicly here or with very many people at all. Now that we’re on the other side of the story, it’s a story I must share. It’s not necessarily about Haley’s African excursion . . . yet it may have everything to do with Haley somewhere down the road if she ever starts exploring long-term missions. It’s a lesson we had to learn personally, a lesson that could maybe help someone else, and a lesson that hopefully gives God all the glory. If you have a little time and are further interested, keep reading . . .

When Heath was a senior in high school, the Marines visited with him in Pella. I’ll never forget his phone call to me on a Thursday night as I was watching his former classmates and teammates pass by in the Bettendorf homecoming parade. He was explaining all the benefits to me while I did a lot of listening and was silently praying for wisdom. Then he broke it to me, “Mom, they’re going to come to the house tomorrow morning to meet with you and Dad, pick up my social security card and birth certificate and get your signatures, and then they’re taking me to Des Moines, putting me in a motel overnight, and then after all the testing is done, I can join.” We put the brakes on that idea real fast and assured him that if God really wanted him in the Marines, He would make it very clear in due time, but there was no way on earth that any of us were going to move that fast. He accepted it, we moved on, and he kept moving forward with his life. Every once in a while, he would share with us that he wondered if God was still calling him to the military, but he would always come to grips that, no, maybe He wasn’t.

Last October, either a week before or after Haley made the decision about Africa, Heath called us from school and informed us that he just wasn’t comfortable with continuing on at Moody and was convinced that full-time ministry was not what he was supposed to pursue anymore. After much discussion we agreed that the best thing would be just to come home for a semester and take some time to figure out what God was calling him to do next. Because we had lost a year with him prematurely, we were thrilled at the idea of having him home again! Eventually he decided, on his own terms, that he wanted to join us in our business. My prayers turned into, “Lord, if this is really what you want for him and for us, please keep him excited and affirm him in that decision, and if it’s not, then please show him a different path before he ever even gets started.”

In January he very excitedly filled out his paperwork and started getting licensed to work with us. His God-given talents and abilities really came to light quickly, and we were ecstatic to have him on board with us. But he soon realized that this might not be as easy as it first looked. His mind started going into panic mode because he knew if he somehow failed here and didn’t have a college education to fall back on, he just wasn’t sure what he’d end up doing. In an initial licensing class that he took, he made a new friend, Ryan, who had just come out of the Navy, so he was very intrigued by Ryan’s stories of being able to see the world and the free education and healthcare he is now entitled to. Heath started seeing this as a real opportunity for himself and just couldn’t shake the thought of all of it. Finally, I made the suggestion that maybe he should at least go check into it at least a little bit just so he would know.

While everything else was going on in our lives that I mentioned in the last blog entry, Heath was moving in the direction of the Navy, and we spent countless hours talking with him about all the pros and cons of everything going on in his life. His 20th birthday was in there, and it was the most pathetic birthday celebration of our lives because we were all tired, frustrated, and totally worn out. Last week Monday morning he went to the recruiter’s office again, and they were talking to him about attending MEPS in the near future. We all talked and prayed some more, but it seemed as though the more we talked, the faster he moved towards the Navy. He was being very respectful about it, and we tried really hard to understand things from his perspective, but Harris and I were completely distraught because we just did not feel any sense of peace about it whatsoever. We knew that he needed to make his own decision, and the last thing we wanted to do was alienate him or hold him back and have him be bitter towards us for the rest of his life. We knew in our hearts that if God was really pulling him towards that, we needed to let go and let God do with him whatever He wanted.

Tuesday morning while I was at Bible study, he was home filling out pages and pages of paperwork. He asked for his social security card, and I got it for him when I got home. I laid on his bed and watched him in silence, and he finally said to me, “Mom, how do you know when you’re making the right decision?” We had yet another meaningful conversation, and I was able to share with him some decisions in our lives and the undeniable peace of God that washed over me when I surrendered to Him and agreed to move here. We left everything near and dear to us at that point in our lives but set out in faith. It hasn't always been easy, but I've always just known it was what God wanted us to do. Eventually Heath left, I sat down to cry and pray, called Harris who was now on his way to Pella, and sent out a few requests for prayer. Our prayer request throughout the whole thing was this: “Lord, please put a major obstacle in his path, or please bring peace to all of our hearts.”

Whenever I’m feeling a little desperate in my prayer life, I tend to be drawn down to the river, so after dropping Kelsey off at school Wednesday morning, I opted to go down there to pray before going back home. It was there that I lifted up my hands to the heavens and REALLY let go of my son and handed him over to the Lord. “He’s 20 now, we can no longer make decisions for him, and we totally trust you to take over from here.” I knew in my heart that I had given him over to the Lord many times before this, but honestly, as long as our children are under our care and are our financial responsibility, it’s pretty easy to take them back and take control. At this point I thought I would feel peace in the storm, but I didn’t. I felt peace in my heart, knowing that he was in God’s hands and not mine anymore, but I still felt as much unrest as ever. Harris and I were both really struggling with this. Was it because the Holy Spirit was not giving us rest and wanted us to keep persevering in guiding him? Was it because it was the military and all that that entails? Was it a pride and humility issue because he’d only worked with us for three months? Was it just the fact that we were really being forced to let go the final time? This was by far the most excruciatingly painful experience of letting go we’d ever encountered.

After I got home, Heath announced at 8:30 that he was going to be leaving for MEPS in Des Moines at 10 a.m. I was calmly able to say, “Okay. Well, would you like me to pray over you now or after you pack?” “After.” I prayed for a lot of wisdom in that next hour or so, and when he sat down, I was able to look him in the eye, tell him he was now totally the Lord’s, and explain to him that we would still love and support him no matter what he decided, but that it was now totally his decision. In praying for him throughout the day, this version of Ephesians 6:4 came to my attention: “And now a word to you parents. Don’t keep on scolding and nagging your children, making them angry and resentful. Rather, bring them up with the loving discipline the Lord Himself approves, with suggestions and godly advice.” What comfort that gave me.

At this point may I just interject something? For any of you who are reading this who either are in the military or have sent someone off to the military, my hat is off to you, and my heart is with you. You have sacrificed and given up so much for the sake of our country’s freedom, and I have gained a whole new appreciation for all of you throughout this experience. Please know and understand that this just happens to be OUR story, and I trust that you're following God's plan for your life, whatever that is. God bless you.

Throughout the day, we kept wondering and waiting for the story to unfold. We took comfort in the fact that many others were praying the same prayer as us, for an obstacle or peace, and we are forever grateful to those of you who carried this burden with us. Around 7 p.m. Heath answered Harris’s phone call, but he was in a van with a bunch of other recruits, so he wasn’t freely able to talk. We found out later that his belongings had been taken from him during the day, he was sharing a room in a motel with someone he didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to come and go. When he finally called home around 11 p.m. while sitting by the motel pool, I said, “Well, talk to me. What are you thinking?” He said, “Mom, I don’t know. I’m really struggling. It’s just the weirdest thing. I’ve been so convinced up until today that this is what I should be doing, but now I’m just not sure. I’m wondering if I really want to give up my freedom.” Wow! For the next little while, it felt as though I was talking to my son again, whereas before he was growing more distant and aloof about everything. Previous conversations he'd had with us and a few others were going through his mind. I had shared with him before he left that an obstacle may be something as simple as a gut feeling, a natural instinct, a movement of the Holy Spirit, or it may be something more traumatic but hopefully short of death or paralysis. We’d leave it up to God to provide the obstacle of His choice, or we were still trusting that He would provide us peace that passed all understanding in all three of us. My last suggestion to him was that if at any time he felt unsure of moving forward to stop, come back home, and think about it. After two days of being with Navy recruiters, he could still go along with us on Friday and Saturday to our Primerica convention and still make a decision after that if necessary. I told him to drop down onto his knees before he went to sleep and just trust God with whatever He did next.

It wasn’t until mid-afternoon on Thursday that we heard from him again through a couple of texts, but the details came out throughout the course of the evening. When he had gone to bed on Wednesday night, he had pretty much decided he wasn’t going to join. However, the next morning the recruiters told him they had a job picked out for him in law enforcement but wondered if he had any interest in nuclear warfare because if he did, they wanted to call in certain people to talk to him. He had scored a 95 on his test, which is supposedly unusually high. He was still pretty sure he was going to turn them down, but when they got to the physical testing, they couldn’t get his eye to refract. They started pressing in on whether or not he had any certain diseases. On his paperwork he had indicated that he used a corrective lens and had 20/100 vision in one eye, but it wasn’t until they asked if he had keratoconus did he realize that that term sounded familiar. He hadn’t thought to put that down because he hadn’t really remembered that term, but the warnings of “Do not conceal any medical information” were going through his mind, and he certainly didn’t want to wind up in prison for two years just because he hadn’t thought to write down that particular word.

He was also thinking about a parking ticket that he had gotten in Chicago with one of our vehicles, but he had paid for it promptly and hadn’t thought it was necessary to disclose that either because it was in no way tied to his name. The pressure of both these things got the best of him, and he finally said to someone, “What if I don’t want to go on?” The recruiters were not very happy with him at this point and were quick to point out all that he’d be walking away from, but in his words, “You can’t put a price on freedom.” Did God provide obstacles or what?!?

Since then we’ve done a whole lot of praising the Lord for answering our prayers so clearly, and Heath’s gone with us to Kansas City for the absolute best Primerica conference we’ve ever been to. Our company just went public, our future has never been brighter, and God’s hand has been all over the whole entire thing. We are ready to lock arms and move forward with what God has called us all here to do, and we'll be forming our own army of men and women who want to take up the cause with us of fighting for financial freedom for families in this country!

If all that’s not quite enough, keep reading! Yesterday Pastor Rob’s message at church was all about the Holy Spirit and His power in our lives. “No Spirit, No Nothing.” You can probably hear it at www.harvestdavenport.org. I can honestly say that I’ve experienced the overwhelming peace and the nagging unrest that the Holy Spirit provides us as believers and am thankful to know the difference.

Then when we got home from church, we received this message from Heath’s Navy friend, Ryan, who was with us in Kansas City: “Man, I am soooooooooo glad Primerica found me and led me to you guys. I know I wouldn’t have God in my life the way I do now if it wasn’t for Heath and you guys. I always feel 100 times better after church which carries on throughout the week.” What reassurance that Heath can still do ministry in a secular world!

And then one final answer from God! Heath’s birthday gift from us was a flight to California to visit family and friends. Right before he left today, he brought the mail inside, and in it there was a letter from the Department of Defense notifying him that he has been medically disqualified for entry into the Armed Forces. Not only can he not go to the Navy, but he can’t join any branch of the military ever! It was just God’s final way of shutting that door forever for him. While he was opening that, I was opening up a letter from the Davenport Police Department, and in it were two pictures of Heath’s car, but it was issuing a speeding ticket to the owner of the car, which is Harris. They can't identify the driver of the car, so no one's insurance or record can be messed with, but let's just say it was a good little lesson for Heath to learn right before he hit the highway to Des Moines! All we could do at that point was laugh and praise God again for how He works in our lives!



“Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May He be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages.” Ephesians 3:20-21