“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -Elizabeth Stone

There was a time when I thought this road called Motherhood would one day become breezy.

One day when ear infections and the middle-of-the-night stomach flu were a thing of the past. One day when homework no longer required my assistance and lunches no longer needed packing. One day when they’d shop for their own clothes and purchase the extras with – could it be – their own money.

Now I know differently.

There are no breezy sections on this Motherhood Road.

My mother has given me some great advice over the years. But the one piece that I remember the most—and the piece that I put to use with the most frequency—is something that she probably doesn’t even remember saying at all. It was one of those times when she was trying to console an upset teenager (me!) and attempting to use that segment of time as a teachable moment.

“Sometimes, Staci, you just need to get in the car and go through a drive-thru for a Coke.”

I’m not sure how much stock I put in that nugget of information at the tender age of seventeen, but I do know how wise I’ve come to view those words as I raised my own children and maneuvered through a myriad of life’s complex twists and turns.

I’m determined to let Joy have its way in me today.

There are some days that make finding that elusive internal balance a real chore. Finding a sense of balance – a way of “having it all” – has always been an issue for women, it seems, for as far back as time goes.

I heard a Bible lesson taught once, and its message has stuck with me. It was all about the balance of life. The rise and fall, the lulls and the swells, that life’s ocean carries us on. Things come. Things go. People come. People go. Circumstances are bad.

It was 5:30 in the morning and I was up early, knowing that Round Two of The Moves was just ahead. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee downstairs lured me and I moved to sit in the quiet, still dark living room to enjoy a couple of cups before beginning what would prove to be a long day.

My morning prayers had been whispered earlier, in the stillness of my bedroom, as I awoke with, both, a sense of delightful anticipation and a sad pang of…well, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

That was the day, almost two years ago, that Jorge moved to his own College Town four hours away, and truly left our home looking dreadfully close to an…Empty Nest.