Redecorating the Nest: Chapter 11

This is the eleventh chapter in the series on Opening Your Hands - The Art of Letting Go.

An empty nest is not the end of the world. And usually it is not completely empty. When children leave, there may be a need to reacquaint yourself with your husband. There will be opportunities to make new friends and to expand your sphere of influence and ministry.

 I trust that you will be rewarded for the effort of reading. Take time to work through the questions at the end, slowly reading and pondering the truth in the verses. God's word will comfort and correct.

And Please read through to The Mother's Prayer at the end. Perhaps the pouring out of my heart to the Lord will help you to put into words the cry of your heart.

“If the nest is truly empty, who owns all this junk?” Erma Bombeck

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” Corrie Ten Boom

“We should be humble in looking to the future because we don’t control it. God does. 

And we should be hopeful in looking to the future, because God controls it, not us!” 

Kevin DeYoung

One summer while we lived in Michigan we had a robin pair decide to build their nest in the windowsill of our boys’ upstairs bedroom. A fascinating nature class right in front of our eyes! The parents got used to our presence and went about their work. Eventually the female laid one little egg a day until there were four bright blue ones to admire. Two weeks later we laughed to see the baby’s bulging eye lids, bright yellow beaks and wide-open mouths. They are more comical than cute. And the noise! I have been told the babies will eat over 100 times a day! The parents were on constant duty. At the end of the next two weeks we were all on “fledge watch.” Everyone wanted to see the moment a little guy took flight. Once one would get up the courage to climb to the edge of the nest -or just got tired of how crowded the nest had gotten-  it was” bombs away.”  This process again took a couple of weeks until each little had braved the great leap into the big world. Somehow I missed every jump.  I was left with an empty nest - filled with nasty stuff that is no longer fascinating. A word to the wise. Get rid of an old nest asap! If you know, you know. 

Your home will probably not empty out all at once either. There can be seasons of an empty nest when children are away at school followed by a full nest during the summer months. Some kids take trial flights and then settle back in. This time of transition is helpful. It is not as jarring to the system as it would be if there was a sudden departure. It gives us a glimpse into what is coming and may help us prepare. 

Empty nesting and age are not necessarily related. I have friends who started a family earlier and had fewer children than I did and so found their home empty way before they were fifty. I was twenty-eight when my first son was born and almost forty-three when the last one came. (There are a lot of perks of being an “old mommy” in a maternity ward - but that’s another story.) The births and their timing were the plan of God. I am sure of it. He opened and closed my womb in his wisdom. All that to say, I was not an empty nester (if the definition is the time when no children are any longer living at home) until I turned sixty three. In a way, I’ve only officially been at this empty nesting business for a few years. So I will be sharing insights I have learned and gleaned from others who have walked alongside me.  

I talked with a friend recently who is going to be a first time empty nester this fall. After 25, 35, or 45 years of a full house, how does one make the transition to two? I’ve been at this for several years, and I still struggle to make a meal that only feeds my husband and I. I told my friend to invest in freezer storage containers. She’ll need them for the first few years.

If parenting takes wisdom, and it did and does, empty nesting takes wisdom too.

Papa Bird

Another thing about empty nesting - for most of us, the nest is not completely empty.  Papa bird is usually still around. And that can be good and bad.

In the spring of 2025 I became fascinated with Jackie and Shadow, the bald eagles who had built a nest -eight feet in diameter, five feet deep- in a massive pine tree at the edge of Big Bear Lake in CA. Little do they know their nest had a 24/7 live nest cam on it. These two eagles, who usually mate for life, have been together since 2018. Same nest. Reconstructed often. New eggs every season. Jackie and Shadow squawk at each other and whistle to each other as they work together through snow storms and winds that weigh down and rattle the branches on which their nest is built some 120 feet above the ground. All by instinct. 

Humans have instincts. But because of sin, our instincts are not always right, and can not always be trusted. They are often fraught with self importance and faulty understanding of ourselves or the situations we find ourselves to be in. Dad and Mom Human do not often know the best course forward in making a home, raising the little ones or cleaning up after they are gone. There can be a lot of squawking and whistling. 

Throughout my husband’s ministry, he has traveled quite a bit. In these last ten years, his days away have significantly increased. We have had to learn a thing or two about his transition back into our home. When he was gone and there were kids at home, Daddy’s absence meant a lot of simple, kid friendly meals. Maybe more play dates. Maybe more treats. It definitely meant that I took on the whole role of discipline and structure. Steve would come home, possibly tired from travel, but filled with new ideas and stories. To me, when he came home it was as if the reinforcements had arrived and I figured it was time to check out for some deserved rest and recuperation. The reunion did not always go smoothly. In fact, for a while it was a source of apprehension. 

We should have known. We had one disastrous incident before we were even married. After our college graduations, Steve went on a mission trip as student leader to Spain for the entire summer. I joined my church’s summer internship program.  Over twelve weeks, we were never able to splurge on a transatlantic phone call. We had communicated often by Aerogrammes, an air mail letter on very thin paper that, folded, became its own envelope. Steve arrived back in the states while I was on a camping trip with 80 highschoolers. My supervisor took pity on me and arranged for myself and a friend to hike out to a phone booth so I could call and welcome Steve home. Obviously, it was not a call he was expecting. On the other hand, I had been composing both sides of our conversation in my head for at least 24 hours. Imagine with me any “sweep her off her feet” scene from a romantic movie. Well in those movies, the actors have scripts. There is nothing spontaneous about any of it. I caught Steve totally off guard and in the midst of a project that was demanding his entire attention. Neither one of us could collect our thoughts or say any of the sweet things I had played out in my mind before I ran out of time and coins for the pay phone. Deep disappointment. Ugh. 

Two quickly moving gears cannot re-engage when they are going at top speed. They can’t without serious damage to the individual cogs, whole gears or the entire machine they are a part of. Imagine quickly putting your car in reverse while traveling 80 mph on the freeway. Even in normal driving conditions, a clutch on a car is used to help drivers to switch gears smoothly. 

My husband and I realized that if he or I was away for two weeks, or even a day, we needed a clutch. That clutch was time and clear communication. Two things not always available when someone first walks in the door. Especially if there are children full of excited anticipation who demand attention.  The awareness that our gears may be spinning at different frequencies helped us to stay out of each other’s pattern until we had time to talk. Once phone conversations became available during absences, we did our best to touch base often. I would make it a priority to be the one to pick him up from the airport. A forty-five minute drive home did wonders for reconnecting. 

Going from a full nest to an empty one is going to take this type of reconnecting for the parents. Except with more care. Thankfully, it usually doesn’t happen all at once. Little birds fly away one at a time. There is often a slow adjustment. Take time to talk. Perhaps in the beginning, even schedule this time on a regular basis. Ask questions. Explore each other’s expectations. Be aware of the areas that have already become an issue.

The man you married decades ago is different from the one who stands beside you now. Time and experiences have changed him. As they have changed you. God is very invested in the keeping of marriage vows and not in a disciplined drudgery-like way, but with heart and soul. Will he not help you to learn to love the person who, though changed, you will spend the rest of your life with? Empty nesting can be a chance to meet each other all over again. It can be adventurous and full of unexpected delights. It depends on your frame of mind and willingness to slow down and readjust.  If you expect each other to smoothly adapt to the new circumstance, there is a great possibility of harm and hurt. Take it slow. 

Feathered Friends

Perhaps you may also need to get reacquainted with your old friends. Or make new ones. Ah, friendship. Such a precious gift, but one that is filled with doubt. Learning to be a friend is not something that only kindergartners and teenagers need to learn. If you have been blessed with the rare jewel of a friend with whom you shared the joys and heartaches of raising children, rejoice!  Don’t take her for granted. If it seems that the only friends you’ve had for the last twenty years are the ones you said “Hi” to in your carpool or at the little league concession stand, all is not lost. Most often friends are seasonal. It’s time to begin again. Who else is in your season of life? Who else needs a friend? 

We moved the summer before my daughter’s senior year. We all knew it would be hard. She went from being the pastor’s daughter who knew and was known by everyone to becoming a nobody in a big church where it seemed like everyone’s family had lived there for generations. High school can be tough. And this was. The groups were already formed and had been for years. My outgoing, life-loving, party-planning daughter was left out. We could see her shrivel. And we prayed. And the Lord answered our prayers. One Sunday morning she announced that instead of going to the high school class expecting to be ignored, she was going to look around the room and see who else was on the outskirts and form a new group!  She found them. Befriended them. They planned parties together. And they all made it through their senior year. We had multiple parents thank us for what she did. 

I’ve thought of the lesson she taught me.  Do I really believe that the Lord knows all my needs - even the desire for a friend? Do I go into a new situation looking for the person I want to be friends with because of how I will benefit from the relationship? Or am I asking the Lord who needs a friend like me? One of my mom’s oft repeated phrases was, “If you want to have friends you must show yourself friendly.” Call an old friend. Ask a new person to go out for coffee. Meet your neighbors. There’s room in the nest to care for others. 

New Vistas

Can we pause a moment and address the truth that the term “empty nest” has a negative sound to it? Doesn’t it? When is empty a good thing? An empty tank of gas? An empty fridge? An empty wallet? Perhaps we could recover from the “empty nest syndrome” by thinking of open hands rather than an empty nest? When I open my hands to let my children go, I am in a position to open my arms to welcome new people, opportunities and adventures. One is never idle when her hands are open to receive. 

Two years ago my  youngest son graduated from college. We had had children in college for nineteen years in a row. There was cause for rejoicing. He came home for a few weeks before beginning his first full-time grown-up job. There was more cause for rejoicing. 

The first day home, he casually asked me what I did all day. I remember asking my mom, when she finally retired, the same question. Her answer: “Oh, (deep sigh) I don’t know. I work all day on things, but at the end of the day I don’t know what I have done.” I felt like that could almost be the answer to my son’s question. Like mother - like daughter? Or just a truth about growing old. Pardon me, growing older. (I have decided that I am not officially old until I am eighty. And I have given myself the prerogative of changing that age as I get nearer to it.)

The question still stands. What are you going to do all day? Or with the part of your day that you used to care for children? 

Stop and look at your hands. They have been wonderfully useful tools. They are probably a little bit more wrinkled now than when you held your first child. Maybe you have had to resize a wedding ring. Whose hands are they? As a Christian, those hands belong to the one who saved you. The one whose hands touched the leper and the blind man and raised a little girl from the dead. The one who broke the fish and the bread and rescued Peter from drowning. The one whose hands were pierced for you. Jesus told his disciples that they would be his hands whenever they ministered to someone in his name. (Matt 25:34-40). Your hands are to be ready for every good work. (Titus 3:1).

What is in your hands? What are you gifted at doing? What do you enjoy doing? Is there a new skill you have always wanted to learn? Where could you serve the body of Christ? One of the best ways to get over sadness is by giving to others. 

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

(Isa. 58:10,11).

What we do with our hands will look different for all of us individually. It has always been the Lord’s prerogative to decide who is given what kind of gift for what kind of use and what the outcome of using that gift will be. (1 Cor. 12: 1-3). Faithfulness, not someone’s standard of success or usefulness, is the objective.  “Discerning our giftedness and seeking out ways to profitably steward them are instrumental to our service to the body. But we are not to focus on them in our service; our focus is to be on Christ. When our focus is on the one who empowers us, enables us and provides opportunities in which we may usefully serve Him, we can see the strategic way that God chooses to leverage our weaknesses to give Him glory.”  (Gloria Furman, The Pastor’s Wife)

Jackie and Shadow are back in the news again. They are fascinating me once again with their antics. They are not worried at all. Their creator is watching and caring for them. Your creator values you so much more. He is committed to more than your physical care. He has committed himself to your happiness and holiness. He is preparing for you a perfect home and preparing you to live with him there. And until then, He has prepared good works for you to walk in. Even if your nest is empty. Trust Him. All will be well. 

Thoughts to Ponder

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 

Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Ecclesiastes 2: 22-25; 9:7-10

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

Colossians 3: 23,24

1. What words of wisdom does the Preacher have for empty nesters? 
   

2. What does the Preacher tell us about God in these verses?
   

3. Where are we to find joy? Why? 
   

4. How is toil and joy related?
   

5. What are the correct motivations for working? 
   

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 2 Cor. 9:8

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Eph. 2:10 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:19

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Cor. 15:58

For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do Heb. 6:10

6. What promises are in these verses that can strengthen you in a time of transition? 
   

7. What is the relationship of these promises to your work? 

A Mother’s Prayer

Dear God of my past, my present and my future.

You are the alpha and the omega. You see the beginning from the end. The movements of the planets, the changing of world governments, and the details of my family’s life are held in your hand. You are orchestrating all events, great and small, according to your divine plan. Only you know my future. Let me be content with knowing you and not striving against the unknown.

Father, you are a God who transcends time, and yet is aware that we are creatures bound by time and space. If a sparrow does not fall to the ground without you knowing, (Mat 10:29), then surely you have seen my little ones grow up and fly away. But you have not left. You never will. You are with me now in this time of transition. Changes in schedules, changes in relationships, changes in limitations, changes in focus. One thing remains amidst all the upheaval: your steadfast love and faithfulness. You will provide daily bread and grace.

Help me to make the necessary adjustments. May I do so with grace, thankfulness, wisdom. May I be reminded of what has always been true. Help me renew vows that I had made in my youth. May I reconnect with the man I pledged my life to.

Open my hands to new areas of service, open my home to new relationships. I do not want to be significant, I want to be dependent. I do not need to be admired by others, I long to be useful to you. I do not desire to be busy, I desire to live fully. And faithfully.