As I cleared away the remnants of Mark’s homecoming party, I realized that it’s time to put away so many mission reminders, the things that encouraged me in our progress. These include the 24 little houses on the kitchen windowsill, one placed after each month completed; the sunflower art and dried sunflowers in a glass box; the small Danish flag in our front yard; and my Danish flag lapel pin that I wore nearly every Sunday for two years at church. Coincidentally, I finished the pages of a prayer journal that I carried since 2024, a record of the personal revelation I received during those years. As I emerge from the life of a missionary mom, I wonder if I should store these objects together in a special box, a memorial to the era I’m leaving behind. That sounds like something I would do. We’ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A well-intentioned, sympathetic person said to me on Sunday that he was sorry that my kids were all grown up. Without hesitation, I said, “It’s okay! It’s good!” As I think about his shock at my answer (he gave a nervous laugh), I realize that he’s still raising little kids and can’t imagine not having them around. I’ve had two years… well, eleven years of goodbyes and two years in an “empty nest” and I’ve processed so many emotions and objects from our past that it feels natural for me to say now, “It’s okay!” It’s actually GOOD. Our kids are doing what we raised them to do, and and our years raising them aren’t diminished because they are over. The pareting cliches are true. The childrearing years are <\/em>my crowning achievement and my children are <\/em>my greatest work. The memories of my little children really do <\/em>grow sweeter with time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ve entered the harvest years, where we welcome grandchildren and see where our children’s lives take them. I have my own fulfilling life now, too. It’s good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I cleared away the remnants of Mark’s homecoming party, I realized that it’s time to put away so many mission reminders, the things that encouraged me in our progress. These include the 24 little houses on the kitchen windowsill, one placed after each month completed; the sunflower art and dried sunflowers in a glass … Continue reading We’ve begun the harvest years.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,34,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-according-to-angela","category-missionary","category-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33332"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33338,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33332\/revisions\/33338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}