You Can Trust Me
One afternoon I was working at my desk, eating lunch between tasks, when it was time to clear my plate, instead of getting up myself, I called my son over and asked if he could take it to the garbage for me.
The plate still had a fork on it, a knife, and the last bits of food. I gave him careful instructions, more careful than the task really required. I told him not to spill anything on the floor. I reminded him that the house was just cleaned and the floors were freshly done. I did not want a mess undoing all of that. I said it more than once. Please do not drop it. Please do not spill it. Please be careful.
He looked at me, and instead of simply nodding and walking off with the plate the way I expected, he said something that stopped me. He said, "No, I won't. You can trust me." Those words hit me somewhere deep in my core.
Pause with me for a moment.
Think about the last time you gave someone in your life very detailed, very careful instructions for something small. Was it because the task truly required that much detail, or was it because underneath it, you were not fully sure they could handle it without you managing every step?
My son is ten years old. He did not ask me to trust him with the family car or a large sum of money. He asked me to trust him with a plate. Yet the way he said it, looking me dead in the eye, told me this was about far more than the floor staying clean.
This moment could not have come at a more fitting time. It is back to school season, and I am handing him back over to his school, classrooms, and hours of the day I cannot see. Summer kept him close, but now he is preparing to leave us again, walking into rooms where he will have to make decisions on his own, without me standing over his shoulder giving instructions. If I cannot trust him with a plate, how am I preparing him to walk out that door with confidence, and how am I preparing myself to let him?
Scripture ReflectionThat moment brought me back to a verse I have read many times but rarely applied to the way I parent.
"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:7).
Love always trusts. Not love trusts when it is convenient. Not love trusts once someone has proven themselves in every possible scenario. Love always trusts, and it makes room for the person on the other side of that love to grow into what they are being trusted with.
Heart TruthsThat day with the plate became one of the clearest lessons I have learned in motherhood, so let me share what it stirred in me.
We do not think we can trust our children, and more often than we realize, we make them feel it, not through what we say, but through what we do.
It shows up in the way we hover over a task they are fully capable of finishing.
It shows up in the extra instructions we give for something that requires none.
It shows up in the way we redo what they have already done, right in front of them, without a word.
Trust is reciprocal, even in a mother and son relationship. We expect our children to trust us because we know the right thing to do and we have walked longer than they have. Yet what my son taught me that afternoon is that trust cannot only run in one direction. If we have given our children the principles, if we have built the foundation, if we have poured the training into them day after day, then there comes a point where we have to trust that it took root.
Confidence in our children is not the same as certainty that they will never make a mistake. It is the confidence that we have equipped them, and now it is time to let that equipping show itself.
This is especially true as our children head back to school. Every new school year asks our children to step further away from us, and it asks us to release a little more of the control we have grown so comfortable holding. We cannot follow them into the classroom, the cafeteria, or the friendships they are forming without us. What we can do is trust that what we have deposited in them at home goes with them when they walk out the door.
Loving Well in ActionTrust is a muscle, and muscles are built through use, not through waiting until they feel strong enough.
Choose one small responsibility this week that you normally manage yourself, and hand it fully to your child without hovering or double checking behind them.
Notice your first instinct the next time your child completes a task. If it is to inspect or redo it, pause before you act on that instinct.
Say the words out loud. Tell your child directly that you trust them with something specific, not in a vague or general way.
When your child follows through, name it. Let them hear you acknowledge that they showed themselves trustworthy.
As this school year begins, speak trust over your child before they walk out the door each morning, reminding them what they carry with them even when you are not there to see it.
A LoveNote
This is your reminder, to the child who is growing faster than you are ready for.
I see you reaching for more responsibility, more independence, more chances to show me who you are becoming. I do not always make it easy, and for that I am sorry. You are more capable than I sometimes let on, and I am learning to trust the foundation we have built together. Keep showing me. I am watching, and I am proud.
Your LoveNote ChallengeThis week, I want to invite you to write a love note of your own.
It may be to your child, telling them plainly that you trust them and naming the specific thing you are trusting them with.
It may be to your husband, thanking him for the ways he has proven himself trustworthy over the years.
It may be to a friend who has earned your confidence, or it may be to yourself, a reminder that you are allowed to trust the season you are in and the people you are walking through it with.
Whoever it is calling you today, take a few minutes to put it into words.
Finish With IntentionTrust is not given once and then forgotten. It is built, one small moment at a time.
As our children prepare to leave us again for another school year, this is the season to remember it most. We cannot walk the hallways with them. We can only trust what we have already placed inside them.
Motherhood requires trust. Not blind trust, but trust that grows out of everything we have already poured in.
Trust them and watch them rise.
You can go deeper with Love Him Well: The Daily Love Note Kit, made to help you love with intention every single day.
Find it here: www.dailylovenotekit.com