Sea Change

Tonight my child will sleep under my roof, serene, unburdened. Tomorrow she'll shelter under a stranger's roof, available at Christ's behest to bear the burdens of many and to trade the serenity of innocence for the serenity of faith.

She says she doesn't want to think of this as leaving. And it's true she's only across the city. She can come home as often as she likes. But there's more of leaving in it than of comfort for a mother's heart.

Nineteen years I've worked toward this day, the day when a strong, shining soul would be loosed to the world she must change. What joy! What pain! Like the sea at the turn of the tide, I am paused shuddering.

Help me, Lord, to weather this birth; to launch her on my ebb to her glowing horizons.