A Sign to Be Still

My only child is about to graduate from high school.

These final months have flown by in a flurry of last this-or-that celebrations, college applications, campus visits, and the standard end-of-an-era fanfare.

Senioritis hovers now, its strains more contagious than the flu.

As I write this, we’re thirty days out from the big day. (Not that there’s a countdown app on anyone’s smartphone).

I am proud as a peacock, yet my heart is in shambles.

I feel ill-equipped for this role.

The swaddling and the shielding? The interceding, nurturing, and defending? Oh, I’ve had eighteen years to practice all of that. It comes naturally. Like breathing.

This letting go though, is a problem. I know that the role shift was always on its way. But now that it’s here, I need much grace to make the adjustment.

Releasing Your Young Adult Children to God

I think of the many moms who have come before me and weathered this storm. Did their prayers sound anything like mine?

God, be my strength when I am weak. Show me. Teach me. Lead me. Guide me.

Fix me, so I may help him in ways that honor You. Give me Your wisdom. Speak through me. 

Give him a hunger and a thirst for righteousness that is his own.

Keep me away from posts and songs and shows and people who will feed my fears and pull my eyes away from You. 

I know You are in control, but this is hard.

Please cover him. Please cover us and keep us safe. 

I do pray. But Lord help me, I still worry.

Many well-meaning friends have advised me to reframe this phase of our relationship as the birth of something fresh and new, not the death of something beloved and familiar. In other words, look on the bright side. 

I’m still working on that. I have good days with it. Some are not so good.

But here’s something God’s been using from His Word to help me trust Him and stay present as I step into each new day of this season. 

It starts simply enough with a sign in my office that reads, Be Still My Soul, inspired by Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Be Still and Know 

Years ago, as my marriage was failing and divorce loomed, that Scripture became a true source of comfort. And it was the soon-to-be graduate himself (a four-year old then), who put it in front of me.

Kirk Franklin and TobyMac collaborated on the song “I Am God,” also inspired by Psalm 46:10, on Kirk Franklin’s The Fight of My Life album.

I was listening to that song in the car one day, when my son started jamming out to the electric guitar licks and the drum beat in the song’s intro.

Strong vocals soon came screaming through the speakers, and the chorus instructed us repeatedly to “Be still and know I am God!”

He was hooked, and a new favorite song was born. For several weeks straight, he’d ask me to play it as soon as we got in the car and replay it until we reached our destination.

I always obliged, pleased with the instant joy it brought him, not immediately realizing what was happening to me in the process.

The Lord was reaching my heart in a unique way with that musical message from Scripture, reminding me that all I truly needed to do during that difficult phase of my life was trust Him. Nothing more. 

A Surprising Reminder

It’s a reminder I’ve received several times since then, often when another major life change was on the horizon.

I purchased the Be Still My Soul sign about a decade later. I was just inside of another new season then, falling in love with the man who is now my husband, when I spotted it in the store.

I brought it home and perched it at the top of my bookcase, leaning it against a corner wall—the perfect place for me to see it as soon as I walked into the room. 

I left it there without securing it any further. It seemed heavy enough to sit that way against the wall without any additional fuss.

I wish I could tell you that every time I walked into my home office since then I stopped to meditate on the sign’s message. But honestly, it wasn’t long before I forgot that it was even there. It had started to blend into the background of my busy daily routine, and so had the powerful message it displayed.

Then one day, from another room in the house, I heard a loud thud come from inside the office. 

I ran in to investigate the noise and saw that the sign had fallen face-down on the bookcase.

I walked over, repositioned it, reread it, and then marveled at the timing. It just happened to be a day that I really needed to trust God and take my hands off a situation.

Random falling Be Still My Soul sign incidents continued sporadically over the next couple years, each time during a period where apparently, I’d needed to see a sign to be reminded that God’s always got me.

I never did properly mount that sign. Maybe I was just being lazy. Or maybe I was enjoying God’s sense of humor on the matter. 

Seasons Change, but God’s Love Is Steadfast

Well wouldn’t you know it, last week the sign fell again! I couldn’t help but laugh.

This time when I put it back where it belonged, I walked away with an additional message in my heart. Seasons come and go. The roads of life are filled with winding turns. But the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. (See Lamentations 3:22-23).

Be still and know I am God. It’s such a simple but powerful instruction. The Lord is always the better battle fighter. We don’t have to understand everything about what the various seasons in our life will hold. We just need to be still and trust Him.

I remain thankful for the Lord keeping the encouragement from that Scripture always in front of me.  Its message is as true now as the day I first positioned my sign on the bookcase. It was true long before I was born. And it will be true after I’m gone.

When I look back at where God has brought me from, and how faithful He’s been through every step of my life’s journey, my faith is renewed, and I gain a fresh wind of inspiration to trust Him once more as I face this current season. 

Is there a truth in God’s Word that He keeps bringing before you? Are you continually fighting battles that belong to Him? 

I encourage you today to just be still and trust Him. Because He is so trustworthy.

—Written by Pam Durant Blohm. Used by permission from the author.