She Bought Me Flowers - On Her Birthday

She bought me flowers — on her birthday.

My husband and I pulled up outside our daughter’s dorm building, and she strode through the door with a bouquet of dahlias in her hand. “Are those from Silas?” I smiled, assuming the flowers were a gift from her boyfriend. Instead, she handed them to me.

“Happy mommiversary!”

 My heart melted into my toes and I hugged her so tight.

I have the best kids in the world.

Since my firstborn was a baby, I’d joke about celebrating her birthday as my own birthday of sorts — the day I became a mom. Through midnight feedings and board books, piano lessons and prom dress shopping, I grew up right alongside her. Every year I became another notch wiser and dumber at the same time, always more desperate for Jesus as we gained our bearings through each fleeting stage of childhood.

 And now that she’s out of the house and her birthday celebration means Dad and I drive two hours to interrupt her campus life — she remembered. Her birthday is my mommiversary, too. And this time she was the first one to hand over a present.

 When I became a mom, people told me parenting lasts 18 years. But I disagree.

 If “parenting” is defined as training and curfews and expectations, then sure, that season has a finish line. But I’m still a parent. I’m still my daughter’s mom, still her noun-parent even though she doesn’t need me to verb-parent her anymore. And if you have kids in the emerging adult stage, too, then you know exactly what I mean. We’re still the ladies who worry and pray and dearly want only the best for our children.

 That kind of parenting lasts way more than 18 years. It’ll last a lifetime.

Just because our kids move away to college or military service or their first grown-up jobs doesn’t mean they stop loving us, or that they won’t someday admire us in ways they couldn’t quite manage during their know-it-all teen years. (Bless.) And it doesn’t mean we’re done growing, either. Because here’s what nobody really warned us about before we had kids: they were going to shape us just as much as God was shaping them.

I look back over the last 19 years and I’m amazed at what God has done. We expect childhood to be all about the child — that tremendous transformation from squishy infant to toddler, preschooler, middle grader, teen. But the growth isn’t only theirs. It’s ours, too.

I’m a different woman now. A better woman. Because of my kids.

And honestly? The empty nest season brings a gift I didn’t anticipate. Our children are out there learning firsthand that adulting is hard, and in that humbling process, many of them are gaining a whole new grace for Mom and Dad’s hard-fought experience. We can stop being authority figures and start becoming friends. That’s a beautiful thing.

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)

He’s not done with us yet, moms. Not even close.

So whether you’re elbow-deep in the little years or watching your young adults fly like I am — happy mommiversary. Every single day is worth celebrating: where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and how God continues to use this wild, imperfect, irreplaceable calling of motherhood to shape us into the women He always intended us to be.

The dahlias are sitting on my kitchen counter right now. And every time I walk past them, I think — this is what 19 years looks like. Not an ending.

Just a really beautiful next chapter.