Time Really Does Fly
Each day, each moment, they all collide into weeks and months and years, then we end up looking back wondering what happened? When did my children decide to go and grow up on me? My sweet baby girl, my firstborn, when did she grow into such a beautiful young lady?
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| Lord, I pray that her innocence never leave her, that You may teach her to love as you love, with unbridled compassion and a hand that reaches out to the lost, weary, and downtrodden. |
Were did the years go?
As each year passes, as each holiday season rolls around with my exclamation of "It's Christmas time already?" I am becoming more and more aware that I need to be purposeful in my actions and plans. Too often, I think, I find myself flitting about doing what needs to be done in whatsoever manner it finds my memory. I find myself distracted, torn between my duties as a home keeper and a mother at times.
Do the two really have to exist independently?
I have a tendency to get so caught up in the here and now, in the outward appearance even, that I let slip away the fact that my children are only mine for a short time, and their hearts and minds matter more than any outward appearance of my home. This does not excuse me from my duties as a home keeper, but rather affirms to me that they are one and the same. I only have a few short years to mold my children to have hearts for the Lord and His people. I only have a few short years to build that hedge of prayer around them. What good is an immaculate house if I let my children slip away into the shadows?
Purposeful Parenting
That is my calling. That is my mission field. To teach my children, to walk with them, to laugh with them, to give them a foundation to build upon, starting with the Rock of Jesus Christ. Purposeful parenting.... finding those tidbits in my day and PURPOSING them for the Kingdom work instead of my own indecisive meanderings. Time to read a book with my children, learn to knit so that I can pass the skill along, practice my piano more along with overseeing my daughter's practice, teach her how to bake while talking of how our Lord is our Bread of Life. Purposeful parenting is parenting with the future in mind.
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| Sisters |
Purposeful parenting is parenting the qualities that I want to impart to my children, on a daily basis. The fruits of the Spirit take purposeful planning to sow and tend, that we may reap in due time. Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Temperance. I must purpose in my heart to cultivate these things myself, by the grace of God, that I may share them with my children as they all too quickly grow older.
Especially joy. If there is one thing that my children are teaching me, it's that I need to be less concerned about the trivial things, and more joyful in life.
I need to run down a hill, then roll down the next one, coming to rest in a soft spot at the bottom, a sea of emerald and sage, letting life flow full and free.
I need to lift up my eyes to the Heavens above and rejoice in the sunset that our Lord has painted as I feel the soft, warm, late-summer breeze caress my cheeks as my Savior's love envelopes my soul.
I need to catch a butterfly, then release it and watch it until I can't see it anymore, marveling at how it's tiny frail wings stand up to the force of the mountain winds.
I need to find an ant hill and watch the busy little ants as they come and go in such an orderly fashion, then talk to my babies about how the Lord calls us to work earnestly and eagerly with our hands for His glory.
I need to learn to love with wild abandon, and let my passion for the Lord and for life overflow into my children's own souls.
I need to be purposeful in seeking out those little things, and making a big deal of them. It's the little things that really count in the long run anyway, right?
This season of my life will be over all too soon. My nest will be empty one day. Soon, they will not be mine to hold. These early years are all that I have, I need to make the most of it.....
On purpose.
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