A Prayer for an Empty Nest

Lord, the bedroom down the hall is too neat now. No shoes by the door, no half-finished cereal bowl, no voice calling from the stairs. I keep walking past their room and forgetting they are gone.

I confess I do not know who I am when no one needs me at six in the evening. I poured years into the noise and the carpool and the worry, and now the quiet feels like grief wearing the mask of free time.

So I bring You this strange new silence. You watched Your own children grow and leave and risk the world. You know the love that has to open its hands and let go.

Teach me who I am in this next season, not just a parent but Your child still. Remind me that the work I did was not wasted, that there is a time for everything under heaven, including this.

I release them into Your keeping, farther than my arms can reach but never beyond Your eye. And I ask You to fill this house again, not with the old noise, but with a new and quieter joy. Amen.