Finally Able to Write This Post

I had been wanting to write all along about what it feels like when your child is getting married.  There are so many emotions tugging on your heart.  It overwhelmed me to be honest.  Every time I tried to think of what to write along the way, it was too emotional...too raw.  So often for me, I can write after the fact, not while I am going through it.  I am sure most parents roll with things a little better than I do, but for me, big life changes are such an intense process.....

I can tell you that I adore my daughter-in-law.  Adore her.  She is the perfect fit for my boy and that Cheney Boy just shines with happiness these days.  They truly honored each other and honored God throughout their dating and engagement relationship.  I am so very proud of both of them. 

I really was totally fine through 2012.  Cheney and Renee were engaged for most of the year and the wedding seemed so exciting and so far away at the same time.  I threw a shower for my soon to be daughter-in-law at my house in early January and it was such a special time.  I loved doing that and Renee was the perfect guest of honor.  I was blessed to be able to share some things with her during a devotional and it was a special time. 

Later in January, things seemed so real.  The wedding was less than six months away and I was having a hard time breathing.  I was panicked.  I wasn't sure I could make it through the wedding without sobbing.  What in the world?  This was not my first child to get married.  I have also been through the planning of a wedding that I had no peace about whatsoever and this was certainly not the case.  I truly knew that Renee was the one for Cheney.  Frankly, she was even the one for me.  I was so excited to add her to our family, but I could not stop struggling with panic. 

God is always so gracious to me.  He gives me time.  He gives me more time.  Sometimes, when time just doesn't enable me to get a hold of myself and get myself where I need to be, He intervenes in a bigger way.  This time, it was in my face and it was clear. 

On Cheney's birthday, I was really struggling.  It was his last birthday as a single person and I hadn't been with him for his birthday for four years.  Would I ever be with him on his birthday again?  I talked to Cheney that day and told him that next year I was coming to visit him on his birthday because I hadn't  been with him on his birthday in so long.  (He had no idea what was going on in my head.)  Cheney explained that he would be married on his next birthday and that wouldn't work out.  I was about to flip. my. lid!!  Did he not realize that his birthday is a very special day for me??  Things in my head were spinning out of control....

Then, God intervened.  He had given me time.  He had been gracious.  Now, Heather, face the facts.  God led me to be reminded that a blogger I had followed in the past, (but amazingly enough saw some information on her on Cheney's birthday), had lost one of her twins on my son's birthday.  The day that I was celebrating my son's life, they were remembering her death.  I remembered that when Cheney was a baby, I was sure God was going to take him from me.  (God was really preparing my heart for Davin's diagnosis) God didn't.  If I had lost Cheney, I would have wailed and mourned that I would never get to see him graduate, never get to see him play soccer, never get to see him get married one day...... 

I got it, God. 

What was I thinking?  How long did I need to be upset that my son was having what I always dreamed and prayed for him to have?  Only until January 30th.  My attitude was adjusted. 

I have told you in the past and it is so true.  I go kicking and screaming for the big things. 

(Renee, I was so hesitant to write this because I never want you to feel that I am less than thrilled to have you in my life and family.  I am going to assume one day you will have a little boy with a face that looks a lot like my little boy looked (because that seems to run in the family;-) and it will all make so much more sense.  I could not be happier with Cheney Boy's choice of a wife and neither could he!!)