Faced with an unsettlingly quiet household after my youngest child went off to college, I found comfort in this promise in the Bible: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Heb. 13:5. It was a relief to know that God's companionship is constant and sure, but I had more to learn before I really felt God's presence filling my life in satisfying ways.
While raising my family, I developed strong parenting, or caregiving, skills. The fact that my children had moved away didn't seem like a very good reason to put these skills on a shelf. I thought of them as a gift from God that I needed to share, and I believed others could be benefited by them. My prayer, therefore, wasn't so much to fill an empty nest but to better understand how God would have me use these gifts now that my children were gone.
Another Bible passage directed me to a practical spiritual solution: "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations." Isa. 54:2. To me, "enlarge the place of thy tent" meant to expand my outreach beyond the family circle, consistently including friends, neighbors, and the community in my prayers. And I took the urging to "stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations" as encouragement to include the entire world, especially its trouble spots, in my prayers. As I did this, I began to trust more and more that God, who is infinite Love, was taking care of everyone's need, each moment, everywhere. Increasingly, I felt peaceful as my growing awareness of Love's everpresence replaced the mistaken belief that I or anyone else could be separated from God.
