Turning to the Divine in Times of Emptiness

Sometimes I can get away with acting like I know what I’m doing when actually I don’t have a clue. My adult daughter asks me for advice, especially parenting advice, when she is struggling to know what to do as a loving mother to her 11 year old son. Christian is away at his first overnight camp. This is a Quaker camp not far from home that both my daughters attended. Ruthie loved it. Joanna struggled with being homesick. But she really wanted Chris to go, and to enjoy himself.

She got a sad letter from him today and it was really devastating. She cried, felt horrible for sending him, felt scared for his negative thinking, felt helpless. So she asked me what I thought.

This is where I have to act like I know what I’m doing. So I reassured her she was a good mom and that she did the right thing, that he was probably having a really good time some of the time, but got homesick when he wrote the letter. I said she could use this with him as a life lesson – when we have to understand that there are good parts to life and hard parts. And we can’t let the hard parts overshadow the good parts. That he would grow from this, and she would be great to help him through this when he got back.

I didn’t know what I was saying.  I really don’t have a clue.