Photo by Maria Liu Wong

By Maria Liu Wong

Being the parent of a middle-schooler is not an easy job. Raising a middle-schooler in New York City makes it that much more challenging.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I let Joshua, our oldest son — a slim-built, not-very-tall sixth grader — walk home for the first time by himself. He’d “run” home (waiting, of course, for all the lights and taking out the tablet to check in by text on the way) once previously from the bus stop 5 minutes away, but this was his first official un-chaperoned walk home. He’d had a pizza party after school for his middle school basketball team, and there was no indication what time it would be over. We’d given Joshua a tablet to use for communicating via Google hangout/email (no – we haven’t given him his own cell phone yet!), and he was to let us know what time he left school (typically a 20-minute walk from home) and what time he arrived home.

That morning before leaving home, I prayed with him – that God would provide safe passage for him, and he would have confidence in getting home without getting lost (he’d only been walking to school with Dad since Kindergarten!). I trusted him, but I wasn’t so confident in everyone else on the street. Of course, around 3:15 pm, I was at work 45 minutes away by train, on the other end of his emails and texts, and praying for those extra-long 29 minutes while I waited for his confirmation text. It finally came, and I typed in: “Yay! You made it!” His reply? “Of course I did! God was protecting me.” Nice, mum. What faith you have!

Entrusting Joshua and his younger siblings to God’s faithful providence each morning and night is a daily grace. Adjusting to parenting this boy turning into an adult (well, not so fast) has not been easy. At times, he is just a kid being goofy and silly. And then there are times he steps up and surprises me with his maturity and ability to say things I don’t expect. Of course! God was protecting him.

As I grow into this season of motherhood, discerning when to push and when to pull back, I am grateful that being in middle school has actually opened up more conversations. My “prickly pear” 5^th grader who never wanted to participate in afterschool activities has become a more active 6^th grader who made the school basketball team and is doing design animation and Arduino electronics activities after school twice a week. Of course, he is also staying up way too late to get his homework done (11 pm and sometimes later!), and much of his time doing it is spent on the laptop. But he is now telling me in detail for the first time in a long time about things he is doing, like theater games he is part of at school and in church youth group. He is becoming more of who he was meant to be, and in doing so, is shining a bit of that Light we are called to see.

³⁵Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. ³⁶While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. – John 12:35-36 (NIV)

As we approach Resurrection Sunday, I am reminded by these verses, what it is to walk in the light, to become “children of the light.” What does it mean to have absolute confidence in God’s protection and love? We need not fear for the darkness of Good Friday is not the end of the story. With Easter morning, we celebrate God’s invitation not only to walk with Him, but to delight and dance in the Light that sets us free!

Maria Liu Wong serves as Dean of City Seminary of New York in Harlem, NYC. She also leads a women’s fellowship group and volunteers in the children’s ministry at Redeemer Presbyterian Church Downtown. She graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University this spring, and her dissertation focused on women and leadership in global Christian theological education. She lives in the Lower East Side with her husband and three energetic little New Yorkers, volunteers on the School Leadership Team at her younger son’s school, and enjoys creating ways to make time and space for students, faculty (and herself!) to learn from and with each other.