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Jul 22, 2025 09:00am

How Do I Trust God When My Child Leaves for College?

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This is for all the parents who are sending their babies off to college next year. It was written after my daughter’s first year of college. I wish you much strength, encouragement, and grit for the journey. As tough as it may be for your kiddo, it’s tougher on a parent’s heart.

Dear Mama,

Your baby just graduated! You just completed a crazy rat race of helping your senior finish high school–kudos to you! Now, you’re in a really weird place of wrapping up high school things and preparing for college life. You will start seeing Senior Sundays (you know, the ones you fell behind on throughout the year but now suddenly miss) for next year’s seniors and you will think, “Wait, why is the world moving on so fast?! Can’t they wait until August?!” You now have copious amounts of time you didn’t have before! Good. Use it to spend with your graduate, for the summer will go by in the blink of an eye.

And, somewhere amid the shopping trips for dorm room things, summer trips, and lazy summer nights, August sneaks up on you. You have been so busy prepping your baby to be away from you that you haven’t registered the reality of it in your heart. You pack up this child whom you have seen nearly every day of her life, and you get a lump in your throat. It’s time. You will drive her to school, just chatting away about life when, in the last hour of the drive, you will want to reiterate every life lesson you hoped that she learned over the past 18 years. You tear up and suddenly, it’s not so fun. You’re about to leave your baby in a strange town with unfamiliar faces . . . and it makes you sick to your stomach. You will hold it together by decorating the dorm and buying all the last-minute things. Then, you realize that there is nothing else to do except say goodbye. And that, friends, is the hardest of all. It is perhaps the moment you have been dreading all summer. How do you say goodbye without breaking down? How do you say goodbye to this child whom you’ve seen every day of her life? No ugly cries, Mama. Try to hold in as much as you can . . . because the moment you leave her dorm room, your kiddo might cry harder.

You walk away, leaving your baby. And, it’s that moment you break down. It’s that moment you learn the true meaning of trusting God. You surrender that child to the Lord and let go. It’s one of the hardest things you might do.

Until your baby calls you . . . and you can just tell in her voice: she misses home. She won’t say it but your mama heart knows. And it breaks your heart again. You cheer her on. You encourage her. You pray for her. You send her cookies at 10 at night to help with homesickness. And you pray some more.

A lot more.

And it’s not a quick fix. It goes on for months and months to the point you feel confident that if you gave her the option, she would leave school and come home in a heartbeat.

So, you don’t. And you pray some more.

Instead, you keep cheering her on to do hard things, pointing her back to the only One who can supernaturally change circumstances and hearts, the Lord.

And somehow, day after day, month and month, the Lord answers your prayers. Somewhere between the frantic emergency room phone call that begins with “Um, hi, I am your daughter’s friend–she’s had an accident and is in the ER . . . ” to the excited phone call of “I am going to the beach with my friends for Spring Break!!”, something happens. Your child finds her groove . . . her niche . . . her people. She doesn’t stay in her dorm all day on the weekends anymore; in fact, she goes out and has fun with friends. (Probably too much fun . . .this is just another opportunity for you to pray, mama.) You start to see she just isn’t surviving college–she starts thriving.

And guess what, mama? You will too. It will feel so strange to readjust to your new normal, sans a child, but you do over time. It makes what time you do get with your kiddo more special. (PS: Don’t go into her room at home right after leaving her at college. You will break down there too.)

And, maybe, just maybe, by April, she will say something you never thought you would hear her say: “I love college!”

When you pick her up at the end of the year, you realize something: between the tear-filled phone calls home and the tough classes, the Lord met your child there in her hard moments and revealed himself in a bigger way than perhaps she ever knew possible. God was, and is, faithful. He just has to let her travel some rocky roads to experience it. (And, He will meet you there too, mama.)

And when you drive back home with your baby, she might even say, “I am going to miss this place.” That’s when you know, friends, something you’ve always known to be true: sometimes, the hardest things your kiddos will ever face in life will most often be the best things in life.

You raised them for such a time as this, mama: to spread their wings and fly. And though it will slay your heart, you know they are never alone. You’ve pointed them to the One who can help them not just survive in life . . . but thrive in life.

You did it, mama. No, the Lord did. You got to watch it all unfold. Keep fighting the good fight.

Cheering you on,

Amber (another mama who did it by God’s grace)