Dear Lord, please comfort parents suffering the pains of empty nest syndrome

Dr. Jacquelyn Simmons

Dear Lord our Heavenly Father, during the latter days of May and early days of June, sometimes in January, also, many parents, family members and friends experience extreme happy moments at having witnessed your permission for graduation tassels of loved ones to be turned from right to left. These motions indicate to your world, also, that our loved ones have “made it”.

Some loved ones express their accomplishments through shouts of joy, mingled with tears, while also remembering that their loved ones are classified by law to be adults, that makes them eligible to make their own decisions. In some instances, to the distress of their parents, some of their immature or mature children have already declared their complete independence even though they are not capable of “footing” any of their bills, including ones amassed during their previously schools’ endeavors.

Now-a-days, graduation ceremonies are held in nursery schools and upwards which often denies the children the joy of being enthralled at being allowed to turn their tassels up their academic roads. They have turned them soooooo many times until the thrill of doing so has abandoned some of them when they turn them in high school with the greatest thrill occurring as they advance upward on colleges and universities levels.

It is true that some children try to “bluff” their loving, caring parents to continue supporting them in the future as in the past, but become more independent/demanding as they advance upward in years. Some succeed in their demands while others…

Lord, please dry the tears of parents as they painfully but bravely try to accept clean empty bedrooms, empty chairs at the breakfast and dinner table, clean bathrooms, moldings favorite dishes remaining in the refrigerators, missing favorite clothing in the washing machines, closets, etc.

Please dry our tears as someone else wears their former sports uniforms, choir robes, band uniforms, etc. Lord, please calm our fast palpitating heart-beats as some have chosen marriage, cohabitation or been persuaded by outside forces not to pursue turning another tassel indicating their higher education. And, there are those who begin to start families before adequately prepared to support them or themselves, and in many instances, we have been forced into the roles of parents, second and third times around.

Some of us are grieved because we reared them in church attendance and as active participants, but some have been drawn away unknowingly into cults. Others began to practice church non-attendance and to this day have not returned to the “fold”.

However, we are still praying that they will rejoice in the knowledge of the Scripture “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he shall not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Please bless us by our children reflecting their christian childhood trainings during their total life-spans and accept you and salvation offered all of us through your Son, Jesus Christ.

Thank You, Lord, for hearing and granting my prayer.

Love you beyond human description,
Jacquelyn Simmons