For the past 25 years, our focus has been on our children. Raising them has taken the large majority of our time–between being room parents at their schools, helping their classroom enjoy holiday events and parties and chaperoning many field trips, being Team Parents for their athletic organizations and planning cook-outs, meals and other team building activities, being active in Show Choir and the countless hours of curling hair and helping with make-up application and roaming the hotel halls at odd times of the night to make sure the kids were in their rooms, having groups of teenagers over to the house to eat, play FIFA, swim, overseeing airsoft gun wars and contests to see how many grapes they can shove into their mouths at once… the list is endless. But David and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of those times and feel beyond blessed to be able to share in all of those moments with our kids and their friends.
Knowing that Nathan was about to graduate from high school got us thinking about what the next phase of our lives would look like. So for the past year or so, David and I have been contemplating what God might have in store for us. We’ve put a good amount of thought and prayer into trying to determine what our “Next Phase” looks like. Our lives have been so wrapped up in our children and what they’ve been involved in, it’s hard to imagine a house that doesn’t have a bunch of rowdy, energetic teenagers running around in it, eating everything from the pantry shelves.
Here’s a list of the 3 things we’re currently thinking we’d like to do:
1). We want to invest into the lives of others again. We want to find new ways to serve others and show them Christ’s love.
Our ministry has always been based on building relationships with people. This has taken on many different forms over the years. We met in Minnesota while we were both volunteering with our church’s youth group over 25 years ago and even became the lead youth directors of our church in Texas for the three years leading up to David’s accident. After that, we didn’t have a specific role or a paid position, but we continued to invest in the lives of others. We believe that it’s our responsibility to show the love of Christ to the people around us. Over the years, we’ve been small group leaders in our church and led Bible studies, but currently we aren’t leading any of those. We stepped back from a few of those roles while we worked on writing our book. So, now that the book is completed, David and I are praying for ways that we might serve others again; how we can intentionally love on people with more regularity. I used to be the lady who would make up a batch of homemade blueberry muffins and then drive across town so I could anonymously drop them off on a friend’s front porch. Or we used to make up a list of some of our favorite dinnertime meals and send a note to a friend that told them they needed to choose which meal they’d like on a specific evening and we’d deliver it to their door. Lately we’ve not done these types of impromptu things nearly as often because our schedules have been so busy. We’d like to find ways to do this type of ministry again, with more intentionality.
2). We need to slow down and clear our schedules. 
Our lives have been C-R-A-Z-Y lately, even though Nathan left for college. The feeling of having an Empty Nest hasn’t fully set in yet because of David’s surgery the day after we moved Nathan to college, wrapping up the edits to our book, beginning biblical counseling classes, starting speaker training, the book launch, etc. We haven’t learned to slow down yet, but it has to happen soon! While I don’t want to wipe everything off our agendas, we need to step back and really look at what our priorities are and know what God wants us to do so we can have a better focus. We need to learn how to say, “NO” which doesn’t come easy for either of us. We truly enjoy doing things, and most of the things we do are “good” things to do, but we desperately need to slow down so we can make sure we’re enjoying the things we do and that we’re able to see how God wants to shape us through the things we do.
3). We love to travel and experience new things and places. 
I hate the cold weather of the Midwest winters, so I’d be willing to go to a warmer climate for a couple of months, but I can’t imagine being away from our kids that long and I worry we’d get bored with just reading books and lying on the beach…. (hard for me to imagine, but it might be possible). David gently reminded me that if we do check out of town for a while in the winter months, that we’d have to go someplace where we could find a place to serve. While we might be able to ditch the cold temperatures, God wouldn’t want us to ditch our responsibility of serving Him. I love that about my husband. Although I didn’t like hearing it at first, I love that he leads me in a way that pushes me to keep others first. When David first challenged me on this topic, my initial (and very selfish) response was, “What?!?! We serve all the time! Why don’t you think we could spend a few weeks off the radar?” David gently reminded me that while it’s ok to take a rest or vacation every now and again, we weren’t created to relax on a beach all the time. We were created to be more and more like Christ. I don’t remember reading about Jesus having a sunburn so I guess David must be right. J So, I guess the deserted island idea is out of the picture and I’ll have to find someplace with ministry opportunities.
I’m guessing that since we are starting up a speaking ministry along with the release of our book, we might be traveling to different places to share the story of what God’s done in our lives. That will be an amazing adventure in its own way. If you’d like us to come visit you and your church or group, be sure to contact us. My suitcase is ready!
What are you doing, or do you plan to do, as an empty-nester?
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