changes of light

I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that I have a junior...well now a senior in high school, my first to graduate and move forward in life. But in addition to that, I have seen our son grow in a way that I have been astounded by in the past year. It's like when your child takes their first steps, without your help, or when you notice one day that they aren't the little boy/girl that you knew, they grow up right before your eyes and you wonder "where did the time go". I have been slowly, and I do mean ever so slowly, giving up things in my life to God. One thing that I have had trouble with in the past was money, one that I am having trouble with now is my children a very, very hard role to let go of. And I don't mean the throw your hands in the air "here God their yours" kind of giving up. I mean the humbling "Lord you have entrusted me with Your children, and I ask and look for your guidance to raise them. I give their lives and their directions over to Your Spirit and protection." Well, that is happening more and more in each of their lives, and right now I see that predominantly in our son, Kaleb. He is being baptized on Sunday, a step that he took right after he witnessed me and Lee's baptism in December. I think he was the first one to sign up that day. Wow what a change!! He didn't even have to think about it, it was like he immediately knew that he was suppose to be baptized once he know what it meant. He is changing in other ways too, ways that I think are not being changed yet those things are to a degree not the same as would expect. He is quick to forgive something that I never did and still have a hard time with; he is quick to say what he believes, even if the majority don't believe with him; and he is quick to correct and help guide his sisters, something that I never had the opportunity to do.
The Psalmist wrote "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him." (Psalms 127:3) I have never read this verse, never been given it until this morning. Today it is something that I know now was meant for me 17 years ago. I am not and have not been a godly mother, wife or person. Kaleb is our first child and I have not raised him nor our girls in the way of God's direction. "Sons are a heritage from the Lord," wow what a statement, what a revelation.
This life Kaleb is living, I believe, is not due to any great parenting tip but God. It wasn't us who made him come up with becoming a Christian athlete, something Kaleb is working on this summer (mostly finding the group in our area), it isn't us who gets him to church (well ok so technically it is), and it definitely is not us who raise and stir the Holy Spirit up in him. Totally and wholly all of this is from and due to God's hand in his life.
He is striving away from us and and all the while I see clearly in him a heart of commitment, a life of change, and light beginning to shine. I don't know what it means to have received a "heritage" or a "reward" but I know and understand that, now more than ever, Kaleb is standing in that role. The role that God planned for him before his birth, the role that makes him our heritage.