She raised her hands out and upward in front of her as though she held something in her hands that she was passing to someone else as she said to me, “It’s like you’re handing your baby to God and saying please take good care of her. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, I have had to trust in the lord before, but not like this.” Her daughter had recently decided to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And the picture she painted for me that day made me see it in a different light.
In our religion it’s common for people ages 18-25 to serve a mission for 18 months to 2 years. They have little to no say in where they will live and serve their mission. They can be sent anywhere in the world and oftentimes have to learn a new language. I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine being in my friend’s situation. Being willing and happy to find out where in the world my child will be sent and having faith that it will all be okay and just let them go. I know that we slowly have to let our kids go and have their free agency. It seems like it starts slowly at a young age until they are actually off on their own.
I know a lot of kids go off to college etc. and that would be hard as well. If they go to college they typically can go home on the weekends, you can go visit them and call or text at any time. This isn’t the case when they serve a mission. It seems like most of them communicate weekly now. So they’ll send a weekly update to family and friends via email, that’s it. Which is actually a lot better than it used to be back before we had the internet. Just letters in the mail and phone calls were typically only on Mother’s Day and Christmas.
It’s interesting how I grew up with people serving missions being commonplace and not thinking much of it. Now suddenly as an adult I see it in an entirely different way from a parents perspective and realize how hard that would be to let your kid go. I find it to be amazing and commendable that these young people decide to dedicate 18 months-2 years of their life for the sole purpose of trying to teach people about our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
As hard as it is to let our kids go and become adults. What better thing to possibly choose to do than to serve others. I have an enormous amount of love and respect for anyone that serves a mission. I hope that anyone that might read this just realizes when they see a missionary that they are just someone’s child out there trying to do good in the world. So be kind to them and show them a little love and respect.
Living With Sunshine 