Lessons in Letting Go: One Mom’s Experience (Part 1)

A few weeks ago, Wanda shared some insights in a Wise Women segment of our Wednesday night Bible study on how the Lord dealt with her and grew her faith during a time when her and Joe’s only daughter Amy decided to go to China to teach English. This week we will post portions of her talk each day in a series of blog posts.

When Amy first approached us with the idea of wanting to go to China to teach English, I suppose fear and apprehension were my first thoughts. However, as I look back over journal entries for those two years Amy was in China, I see how the Lord grew my faith and trust in Him and how He alone was my sole source of comfort and strength. I have heard Amy say, “I think my mom grew a lot more than I did while I was in China.”

I don’t believe “letting go” is a natural tendency for a mother. It is apparently something each mom must learn to do and it is probably different with each child. I know when our oldest son Matthew said he wanted to move out on his own, I said, “YES!” He had been working an evening shift, was coming home at midnight, cooking breakfast, and staying up watching TV for hours. Of course, I was hearing and smelling everything that he was doing. I was glad he was ready to be on his own. With Amy, it was different. She was my shy child. She would make her younger brother Robert go into McDonald’s with her after school so he could place the order and pay. When she was old enough to drive, she would take Robert to the gas station with her so he could go in and pay for the gas (in the days before debit cards). She lived in the dorm at college, but came home every weekend for two years. She was content to be at home with her parents on Friday and Saturday nights. And now she wanted to go to China!!

After having attended two summer sessions of KALEO and a semester of Perspectives on World Missions, Amy decided that God was directing her to apply to ELIC (English Language Institute/China) to teach English in China. Two events occurred that spring helped me to grow in my trust in God’s will for Amy’s life. First, Amy volunteered to help edit a book that a friend was writing on missions (Amy is a graphic artist/designer.). She told him, “My mom will be glad to do the typing, because she types really fast.” Little did I know the impact that typing would have on me as I typed pages regarding being a disciple of Christ and giving our lives in service to Him.

The second event was the BCLR Missions Conference. Our main speaker that year was Conrad Mbewe of Zambia, and his topic was “Partnership in the Gospel” from Philippians 1:5-6. At that conference, I gained a new perspective on the vision for missions and a confidence in my heart that I could willingly give up my rights as Amy’s mom, to allow her to go wherever God desired her to go and to do what God would have her do, knowing that He would never send her anywhere that His grace would not sustain her. I knew there would be days when I wouldn’t feel this confidence. My prayer those days would be that God would keep me from sinning by having a weakening of my faith, but would instead, as is spoken of Abraham in Romans 4:20, “yet he did not waiver through unbelief regarding the promises of God but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.”

My new mission was to have a partnership in the gospel with Amy as she took the Good News to China. Conrad spoke of William Carey and his words to the people in England as he left to go to India. He told them, “I’m going down into the mine; I want you to be faithful holding the rope.” The person in the mine (India or China) is dependent on my support. I become a vital component of the work of missions through prayer, giving, and being faithful to persevere and hold tightly to my end of the rope no matter what is happening at the other end. To me it meant planning months ahead to make sure that Christmas box, that birthday box, that Easter box, those popcorn balls (Yes – I did send popcorn balls to China!), etc. arrived on time. It meant being up early to chat online (with a 13-hour time difference). It meant never, ever getting used to the idea that she was in China lest I become complacent and let go of the rope. As a visual reminder to Amy, I actually sent her a piece of rope in the mail – one end was labeled “Little Rock” and one end was labeled “Taiyuan.”