I need to hop in the shower. I need to clean the house. I need to read the other two chapters assigned in my business class this week. I need to figure out what's for dinner soon because we have Awana tonight. I need to work on Ryan's Awana verses with him. I need to deliver Krystyn's makeup. I need to get ready for Awana...which takes me back up to getting a shower.
But more than anything, I need to breathe. I need to enjoy today.
As always, I've been waiting to write this blog for days now...almost a week, actually. Time so often slips through my fingers like water, overflowing one minute and gone the next.
And that's what today's blog is about...time...the moment...the NOW.
Last Friday Josiah and I took the kids to Busch Gardens. We hadn't been yet this fall, and they were dying to go before the end of the season. Destiny took a friend so she didn't have to spend the entire time with the parental units and their miniature offspring, but she did take her sister with them for a bit.
I would never have allowed that a couple years ago...but now they're both older.
Ryan rode the Loch Ness Monster for the first time. He came running up to me afterward, face beaming with pride, so excited to have reached this new milestone.
He wasn't tall enough last year...but now he's older.
I didn't realize how I felt about all this growing older until little Ryan and I rode Tradewinds together. If you're not familiar, Tradewinds is a ride that simply goes 'round and 'round in a circle and up and down little hills...quickly. The effect of all this 'round and 'round and up and down, is that centrifugal force pushes the person on the inside of the ride practically inside the person on the outside. It's lots of fun.
At one point, in the middle of the ride, I looked over at my little guy, and my heart just about exploded. Everything about what I saw screamed joy and youth: his blond head thrown back and his mouth wide open in laughter, the bright lights blurring past us, and the clean, crisp fall air blowing in our faces as we sped along the track.
There was almost a moment of panic and sadness. THIS moment will never happen again! I wish I had a camera! I wish this wouldn't end!
But within a millisecond I realized all the wishing in the world wouldn't stop time from moving on, so I did the only thing I could do...
I took a mental picture of my beautiful boy, closed my eyes for a brief moment to thank our wonderful, loving God for giving me the stewardship of these four gorgeous creatures, and then I dove into the moment so I could experience all the joy I could with him before the magic went away.
Solomon wisely said:
"This is what I have observed to be good:
that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink,
and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun
for the few days of life God has given them-
for this is their lot."
Ecclesiastes 5:18
Life is often toilsome and mundane - but there is beauty in it. God gave us so very few days to enjoy the ones we love, so we need to take the days he gave us and squeeze them of every drop of love, joy, and beauty we can.
I still need to get a shower and accomplish the other things on my endless to-do list, but I'm making my number one priority today to embrace my husband and children and immerse myself in the fleeting moments I have before, like water, they slip from my grasp.
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| Photo credit: Carrie Hale http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrie_l_hale/3943182082/ |
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