I am four decades and some years wiser now, so you can’t fool me. I can’t be taken in by the promise that a collection of calendars, rings, index tables, and zippered closures will bring order into my life. No leather-bound illusions of control for me! I am the mother of a teenager; I know better. Also, my aging mother never has the forethought to consult my schedule to see if a medical emergency requiring several weeks at the hospital is convenient right now. I grudgingly concede that my life is not totally under my control.

Still the day of reckoning had arrived in spite of all my best efforts to deny, ignore and delay it. Over Christmas vacation Francesca had enrolled herself in Driving School for four days of classroom instruction. Then she had the audacity to apply for a learner’s permit and get 100% her first try on the written test. I started to think about all the important things in life one should be required to get a learner’s permit for, like marriage and parenting, etc., etc. Now she began to petition for car time. I had one more stall tactic up my sleeve. "Take a driving lesson, first," I suggested. "Get some instruction from a neutral party first." She scheduled one immediately, came back with an A+ rating and was hot to trot. She would be put off no longer.

We exchanged seats in the car (a portent of new roles to come) and buckled our seat belts. I put on my best calm mother face, while inside my guts were churning up a new emotional cocktail – made up of one part anxiety, one part raw abject fear and one part sadness. My pulse raced and my blood pressure rose. "Nice and easy," I advised. But in spite of all reason and rationality, I was sure the second her foot touched the gas we were going to go hurling into space, crashing into everything in our way, and land in the Pacific Ocean. This scene played out in my mind before we even left the curb.

I tried my best to hide my inner turmoil. Francesca is a competent, careful and smart girl. There was no good reason to think she would be reckless. This was my emotional baggage and I didn’t want to pack her car trunk with it.

The wise mother that lives deeper in me called me to attention. This was about more than relinquishing the steering wheel; this was about the letting go, letting her grow up. "Yes," I told the wise mother, "I know I did a good job, but what about all those other drivers? What if their mothers didn’t teach them to be nice, to be careful, to follow the rules?" The road from our driveway would lead to college, to independence, to a life of her own. There would be things I could not protect her from.

But these are my fears and not for all the security blankets in the world would I thrust them on the shoulders of my brave, idealistic and optimistic teenager. So I pondered all these things in my heart and began to think of Mary. In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 3, Jesus is making quite a dubious reputation for himself in some sectors with his preaching. Mary sends his brothers out to bring him home, but he refuses. I think that as she sits near her hearth making bread she says to herself, "Oh God, he’s going to get himself killed if he keeps this up." In her heart she wishes what all mothers wish: he should find a nice girl and settle down, give her some grandchildren, maybe even open up a nice little rabbinic school in the countryside. But she does not share this out loud. She knew what I must now learn. There comes a time when we must acknowledge the limits of our control and finally trust our children to God and His will for them.

As for me and my leather-bound organizers, I know that they are at best only memory joggers. They do not dictate where the day will lead me. I do know, in spite of my fears and anxieties, that if I get up in the morning in good faith, say my prayers, and put my shoes on one at a time, the Lord will guide my feet, hopefully on the paths of righteousness!