My son turns 17 today. I’m having a hard time coming to grips with it. It won’t be too long before he is out of the house, gone away to college, married with kids, and living a very adult life. We are thrilled for what is coming for this kid. He is smart and ambitious and funny and resourceful and he loves God. He will be more than capable of navigating the choppy waters of these next seasons because of who he is becoming.

I believe that.

But I’m feeling a little shaky. Nostalgic even. And I hate it. I don’t want to be the person who is never happy with present circumstances—who resorts to dwelling on the “good ole days.” I’ve never really given myself over to thinking too much about the past and what should have been. It has always seemed pointless. Sure, appreciate what God has done; think fondly of days gone by; pull out the photo albums on birthdays. Any more than that, in my opinion, and a person deserves a strong talking to. Think and dream and plan and pray and travel and drink good wine into the night—that’s how I want to live. Leave nostalgia to the weak-willed ninnies!

But today I’m moping and nostalgic. Brooding even. I’m feeling real regret over seventeen years of should-haves and would-haves. This is natural, I think. Cathartic even. I can’t change how I’ve lived these years, but I can assess and consider what’s next. In no particular order this is where my thoughts go today:

Seventeen years of . . .

Too many arguments. Too many hills that I was willing to die on for no good reason. For the life of me, I can’t remember one of those pieces of real estate that made my blood pressure sky-rocket. I didn’t have to get my way all those times. But I did. I won every argument against my son. Somehow I think I still lost in the end.

Too many no’s. Amy reminds me often, “Jon, say yes more!” Most of my no’s in these seventeen years were because I didn’t want to be inconvenienced. I didn’t want to change my schedule. Mostly, it was a no because I wasn’t willing to say yes. I like to be in control too much. I think I was least like Jesus in these moments.

Too busy with work. This is nobody’s fault but my own. Some pastors like to play the victim card to their church. The truth is, I love my job—maybe too much. Long hours and even missed basketball games for a meeting . . . I should have been fired for pastoral malpractice. This is akin to an airline pilot being drunk at the helm.

Too disciplined. Short tempered and easily angered is probably a good description of me during these seventeen years. I was much more apt to give grace to people I didn’t even know than to this boy who needed it most. Ironically, the clean and ordered lines which I demanded from him, I rarely imposed on myself. I am the perfect Pharisee.

Of course, the list goes on and on: too protected, too sarcastic, too much church talk, and too much silence. Like Larry Nassar, I am weary of the indictments. Every charge finds its genesis in sin—every one of them. My son (and daughter and wife and staff and church) paid the price for my rebellion against God. With my time left with Connor (and with the years we have with our daughter), these are what I choose to lean into.

More trips. We’re going to make more memories in these next few years. In cars and trains and planes and in cities we have never visited. Memories that are full of joy, not regret. Memories that give us a sense of what is coming. We’ll eat great food and drink coffee as black as the cosmos and laugh hearty laughs.

More prayer. Our family has generally prayed together—at night and in the mornings. My wife gets the credit for this. But more prayer for (not just with) Connor and Sydney is what I’m after. I want to pray big and audacious prayers. I want to pray prayers that make me nervous. I want to pray prayers that make God proud. I don’t want my kids to blend in, pursue the American Dream, and lose their souls. I want more for them! Mostly, I want my kids to do impossible things for the glory of God.

More grace. I’m giving myself more grace these coming days. Not just grace because I’m a screw up—though I am. Grace to love fuller, grander, and more profoundly. Grace to be who God made me to be as a father. And heaping amounts of grace to my kids. They are amazing—but fallible and broken and inconsistent in their own right. They need grace too. Grace upon grace for all of us is what I’m after.

The days ahead are unknown. God has ordered them, but he could put a cosmic period on my life tomorrow. This is why nostalgia is such a dangerous thing. Too much time and energy given to yesterday and I might just miss the joy of tomorrow.