I’m only pulling out two plates for dinner these days.

I’m not pulling Lego guy pistols and swords out of the debris I just swept from the dining room floor anymore.

There are no loud crashes of wooden block towers on wood floors heard from upstairs.

I’m not making two pizzas (Mexican & pepperoni) every Friday night while listening to negotiations over what movie it will be this week.

Not ordering new homeschool books and curricula.

Not reading aloud The Bronze Bow (tearjerker) or By the Great Horn Spoon (hilarious) every afternoon.

No Latin flash cards or history songs.

There are no baseball, track, or cross country uniforms to find and wash.

No ballet slippers, pink tutus, or ice skates turning up in various locations.

There are no more tree house adventures, wrestling matches, or airsoft wars.

No more teen girls making cookies, watching movies, and laughing together on my couch.

No more conversations about who needs what car and when. (And no more walking out the door to run an errand only to find there is no car at my disposal!)

And not only did I not hold anyone on my lap during church last Sunday morning, I didn’t even have a child sitting next to me.

That’s when the tears came.

Robert cried off and on throughout the day on Saturday, as he cooked Kayla her last breakfast at home for a while, and as we helped her get packed, and then as we waved goodbye while she walked through airport security all by herself.

To Europe.

He cried when we got back to our short-term-parked minivan not full of kids anymore.

But it didn’t hit me until the worship music started on Sunday morning, and she wasn’t there next to me. Her dear friend Charlotte sat next to me, and somehow that made it better, but also harder.

These three kids of ours are all learning and growing and thriving and serving in such wonderful ways. Still, I fell asleep with tears rolling down my cheeks last night.

Robert and I have been trying to process all of this the last couple of days. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but we both think that homeschooling might have made this transition just a wee bit more difficult.

“We were just always dwelling together, and I miss the mornings the most,” were his exact words.

Pajamas and sleepy eyed faces.

Breakfast. Muffins on Mondays. Waffles on Wednesdays.

Devotions.

Schoolwork.

All around the dining room table. All day long.

Dwelling. Together.

Through the years we would often wonder why our downstairs hardwood floors were (and still are) such a wreck.

Oh, it’s because we actually live here. We dwell here continually and unrelentingly.

Kids are hard on a house.

No kids in the house is proving to be hard on my heart.

Oh, I enjoy some silence and a less hurried pace for the most part. I’m taking advantage of this new reality by trying to finish up a Master’s Degree by May and working more on women’s ministry endeavors at church.

But I really loved being a mom at home.

I loved homeschooling.

I loved read-alouds and movie nights and dance recitals and baseball games.

I loved cooking meals, planning birthday parties, and nurturing them when they were sick.

It was all very meaningful to me – and joyful, too.

But don’t hear me wrong – those things were also difficult. In fact, they were very difficult. I complained about them, and I cried over them.

“Nurturing life in the face of death” is how Gloria Furman puts it in Missional Motherhood.

It’s not for the apathetic or faint of heart, because it requires everything – all of your strength, all of your wisdom, all of your time, all of your resources, all of your intellect, and ALL of your patience. Actually, if you ask me, giving all of those things from in and of yourself is not even possible.

Motherhood requires Christ – all of His strength, wisdom, resources, intellect, and certainly all of His patience.

I hope it doesn’t sound overly dramatic when I say that this mothering/homeschooling thing has been the most difficult and the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done. (I often say the same thing about church planting, but motherhood probably takes the cake here. Hardest job on earth, right?) And it’s not that my mothering years are over, but they look different from here on out, because I may never again have a child living in my home full time, and that hasn’t happened in 23 years.

The way it’s supposed to be at this juncture, I know, but definitely a new way for someone who’s dedicated almost a quarter of a century to the task.

So, it’s quiet here. And I’ll probably be grieving that for a while.

I liked getting five plates out for dinner every night.

But I’m trusting that God will give grace in the sorrow and that He will transition and usher us into a new season with as much meaning and joy as the previous one.

(And you know what? Now, when they’re all home, I’ll actually be getting out six plates for dinner, because I have a new daughter-in-law. And THAT’s a pretty joyful part of this new season already.)