I love my life. Pretty much everything about it brings me great joy and the only reason I wouldnt look forward to waking up every day would be because I crave more sleep. I do have bad days.. ya know, like right now there are NO -and I mean, ZERO- chocolate chips in my house. This- brings me pain. Call it shallow, but since I live in a 3rd world country and have no malls, fast food, clothes OR shoes my size, and flies live on the fresh meat I buy, I feel like I have some right to whine about not having chocolate chips pouring out my cupboards.
However, thats not why Im writing today.
This weekend I had a wake-up call. You know in those movies when a character gets 'hit' with a realization about something... sometimes the camera goes screaming into a super close up view of their face and freezes. Time just completely stands still and all the thoughts you have completely line up and make sense and reality can be touched. I had one of those moments. It was literally seconds, but felt like hours.
This past Saturday my teens, Nathaniel and Jackson spent the entire day out gallivanting around with friends, or on their own studying at Joma... things they have done before.. but this time, instead of me running around doing this and that, I sat down with my sweetie man and the 4 younger kids. We watched a movie and had snacks etc.... It was at this moment where I got slapped... I looked and saw 4 little ones, completely content at being home with mom and dad and while that delights my heart, I started to ache. I recognized in an instant that we were incomplete and life had changed.
Ive been watching it happen. I have been feeling it happen.. I can feel it in discussions I have with Nate, I can feel it when I watch Jack so confidently take off around town and when they engage adults and ask for certain movies, music and even food.. no longer do they long for pizza... now its Indian, steaks, and flavors that dont normally appeal to childrens pallettes.
My heart started to cry inside of me I think. It practically is just as I write this. My babies, are no longer babies. My precious little 2 year old Nate who would beg me not to give him 'yuckie medicine' and my chunky, compliant Jack who smiled constantly, have transformed into these gorgeous young men who tower above me now and sound like men. They have surprised me at every turn doing things I never knew they would do, and sweetly growing in the Grace of God.
The bottom part of the hourglass is filling up rather quickly, which means the top part- MY time with them, is quickly emptying and I will soon have to CHOOSE to turn it over and let them go on to experience adulthood... the next portion of their life. Oh my.. while this will be normal, I know my mothers heart. I know I am going to a part of my heart cut out with each one.
How do you carry these pieces of you for 9 months, falling in love with every moment, and then raise them, school them, train them, baptize them, and walk them through trials in life and heartaches in love, and release them to the world outside your protective hands. I have Very specifically chosen to pour my essence of life into them as best I could and train with all I am so that they are ready, but OH the PAIN in release. -deep, DEEP, sigh- inhale, exhale.
So, Im grateful for the awareness.. that the bit of time I have left with them IS MINE for now. What am I doing with it.. is it enough (will it ever be?), do I please the heart of God in my training of these Mighty Men of His? Have I missed the mark at all?
I do feel confident in many things. Homeschooling. I am shocked that without any previous concept of it before we had kids I had felt God stirring me to consider it. It is hands down the most brilliant thing we have done with them. (I am confident of this, whether they agree right now or not!) You could not pay me to alter this. Prayer and Journaling. These two have always gone hand in hand. I journal my prayers as well as my hopes and dreams for each child. They know this. They are all looking forward to receiving their journals when they graduate. I have periodically pulled them out from time to time to read an answer to prayer that I wrote when they were 2 or 5 years old etc... we are all completely flabbergasted by what God has done through this. It is certainly proof to them of my prayer life and Gods sweet goodness and activity in our lives as we walk in obedience.
Raising these World changers, these Global Nomads, God men, has been my greatest joy and certainly the most important thing I could ever do or be known for. I praise God for the priviledge of being a Mother. Their mother! Id just like to slow that hourglass stream down a couple notches.
xo
Jen
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