Navigate Empty Nest Effectively

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

─ Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT

Research shows that about 25 percent of people will experience Empty Nest Syndrome. A syndrome is really a collection of responses that come together to become a pattern or condition. Empty Nest is depressed and lonely feelings that come after your children leave home. Many parents admit that of all the transitions in life, empty nest can be the most difficult. We see an increase in divorce at this stage in life because the children have been the focus for decades.

Let’s look at four facts about the empty nest time:

1. Life is made of seasons. Ecclesiastes 3 says, in everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven …. There’s a time to be born, there’s a time to die and there’s a time to build up and there’s a time to tear down. There’s a time to raise children and there’s a time to let them go.
2. Empty nest is one of the many normal losses. The word loss here is used because you’ve been investing in your children every day and now that looks different.
3. Just because you have an empty nest today doesn’t mean you’re going to have an empty tomorrow. Thirty-six percent of millennials between 18 and 31 are living at home again with their parents.
4. Empty nests make room for buried issues to come to the surface. When the last child leaves home, those areas in marriage relationships are now exposed.

Understanding these challenges may come during this season can help you to navigate them more effectively.

Today’s One Thing

Talk about empty nest with your spouse or a close friend if you’re a single parent. Pray together and ask the Lord to help you understand the season you are in and how to prepare for the seasons ahead.

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