Welcome September! Gosh, it came in beautifully this year. With all its crisp mornings and sunshine. With all its fun and promise. All its anticipation. Allll of its anticipation. Of all the things. The homework, the activities, the driving. The moving of kids to college, the getting everyone to their proper places, the paying of tuition and food and back-to-school clothes, the reading of syllabi. Oh the syllabi. God bless the syllabus. The seemingly innocent paper that lays out all the things. All the many, many things to come. The expectations of things to get done. And to get done well. Oh my goodness, welcome September. And welcome to its anxiety.

These are the days when I question if God got the right girl. The right girl for this big job of parenting these kiddos all going in different directions, following their paths, stepping off their paths and bruising their knees, and hopefully stepping back onto the right paths. How am I to do the right things as a parent? How will I bring them through the syllabus of their lives and keep them on the path? Oh my goodness, all the things.

Last night in the shower, because all the best thinking about all the many things happens in the shower, I was running through all the September things in my brain and successfully overwhelming myself until my brain was spinning and I nearly fell right over. Literally. At that moment, the shampoo bottle and a bit of an epiphany hit me. What if September isn’t about me? What if tackling the whole syllabus tonight, the multiple syllabi, actually, isn’t my job? What if I listened to what I tell my deer-in-the-headlights kiddos when I remind them to focus on God and remember that God hasn’t yet given them what they need for the whole of the syllabus? All they have is what God needs them to have for today. For step one of the syllabus. That He carries the rest in His fully capable, more than capable, hands.

Psalm 143:8 “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.”

What are we to do as September stares us straight in the face? What if all we have to do is take one step? One step closer to Him. What if we stop the mental gymnastics and the planning and the worrying and instead we focus on Him? Take the strength and resources He’s given us for today and use it to step closer to Him? Oh my gosh, suddenly my shower seems so much safer and nicer.

So today I welcome September right alongside all of you. And I dedicate my brain power to praying for Him to hold my kiddos and me close as we take the one step today that He’s enabled us to take. And that we look around a little bit, breathe, and thank God for what September really is. A chance to walk the syllabus with Him.