Our family recently took a short trip to the mountains. We booked the cabin, packed the cooler, and planned about as well as know how to plan: loosely and lightly. As much as I looked forward to our little adventure, I’ve been on enough Joseph family adventures to know that there is always a twist. No matter how hard I try to plan for all contingencies, no matter how many hours my mind spins with what might go wrong, I can never get ahead of our adventures.

On this particular trip, the twist came on what was meant to be an easy hike. I was nervous about hiking with our youngest who has weak lungs due to asthma, but we didn’t want him to feel left out. The first half of the hike didn’t even feel like a hike; it was a mild walk in nature. The second half became a semi-scary adventure.

But God used those scary switchbacks to show me in a moment a lesson he has been trying to teach me for many months: my big boys are not boys anymore; they are becoming men. While that sounds like a victory (which is most assuredly is), it feels like grief sometimes. My role in their lives continues to morph and change, and I don’t do transitions particularly well.

After our adventure and a bit of a relational bump with one of our sons, the Lord gave me the gift of space. During those days of time away from my boys, I realized how much I have been fearing this new season rather than embracing it. Moving from carrying boys to companioning with men is a gear shift for the soul, but it is one that God designed for our good and His glory.

Being Carried by One I Used to Carry

In an effort to outrun time and chase down memories, we set out to hike. It all looked good on paper, but I had some secret misgivings.

After all, Phin’s lungs weren’t strong as they should be— they’d landed us in the hospital a few months before. But I didn’t want him to be the odd man out again; I wanted us all together.

A gentle walk turned into a set of switchbacks, climbing quickly in elevation. Eli was right— we should have doubled back. But I didn’t want our hike to end, and I didn’t realize how high we still had to climb. 

My fear began to feed Phin’s. I saw the scared look in his eyes, but it was better to get up and over and done than circle back. The panic grew with the elevation, my heart pounded with Phin’s. 

That’s when you stepped in. 

Calm under pressure with lungs that could contain both of ours. You carried him— first on your back, then on your shoulders. The two of you made a tower of half of all I that I hold most dear. 

You kept things light; you made him laugh,helping him forget the weakness of his lungs and his weariness. When we got a little lost, I saw you turn away to take a breath, hiding your exhaustion so no one else would see. 

You carried more than him that day— you carried me. And that’s when I realized it was time for me to stop trying to carry you; such a capable soul needs companioning, not carrying. I wanted to snap a picture, but I was too scared and I knew the moment was too sacred. 

Later, when we were back at the cabin, I hugged you, but it was a different hug.Though it’d been happening steadily, I realized it in a seismic moment: 

You aren’t a boy anymore; you are becoming a man. 

Seeing you helped me better see the other men in my life: the middle one who kept calm and kept us on the trail (mostly) and the grown one who, though he hates hiking, made his way to meet us in haste— the same man whose composed leadership has chiseled away at my anxiety for decades. 

No, the mountains weren’t the tallest thing surrounding me that afternoon- my men were. 

I am glad to be dwarfed by them. I’m getting comfortable borrowing strength from the ones that used to think me strong. 

It seems that time is even more thin than the air at elevation, as it should be.

The One who Carries

It was no coincidence that the Lord had my soul meditating upon and studying the beginning of Isaiah 46 for the past few weeks. In this passage, the idiocy of looking to idols which need to be carried is compared with the wisdom of being carried by the Creator. Isaiah uses the imagery of God’s people packing up their idols onto the backs of beasts as they are leaving in exile to show them the silliness of trusting in anyone or anything but Him (Isaiah 46: 1)..

The idols to which we look for life (in my current case: control in parenting) cannot relieve our burdens; in fact, they add to our burdens (Isaiah 46:2). Instead of carrying us, as they promise they will, we end up carrying them. Juxtaposed with these idols, the God of Israel declares himself the following:

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb, even to your old age, I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46: 3-4).

 God will carry me, as he will carry my children. He is the Great Carrier and the Great Companion. He is trustworthy in every season of parenting. He who made the mountains knows how to make men.