Don't Blink

When will we live like today is important?



How many days, weeks, months, or years will we put off doing the most important things, saying what is on our hearts, loving with no regard to what we’ll get in return?



As you know, my kids and my family are very important to me. I love them more than air. I enjoy them everyday and I am so blessed to have a home filled with love and fun and laughter. Tim and I try our best to be great parents. We talk about “character” and “right and wrong” and how as kids, they are practicing to be adults. We ask them hard questions and try to show them that there are consequences for their actions. We hug our kids and kiss our kids and pray with our kids. And yet, Monday, I felt like a ton of bricks landed on my heart.



Maybe only a Mom would be able to follow this heart-logic, but I’ll tell the story anyway.



Chandler and I do various projects together and in the past, when lifting something heavy, he would say, “I can’t lift that!”. I would always go and lift “that” and then say, “Baby, If I can lift it, you can lift it.” After this, he would suddenly be stronger and the task would be completed with only minor grunts of exertion.



Monday, I was in the garage trying to pull the lawn tractor out to cut the grass. (Yes, I LOVE to cut the grass!) The big, old, lawn mower was parked up against a wall with fourwheelers and you couldn’t move it an inch in either direction. My only hope in moving it was to move a fourwheeler. Believe it or not, I got that done all by my lonesome. After about ten minutes, Chandler came to the garage to “check on Mom”. He showed me that the lawn mower had a flat tire up against the wall and that we would have to pick it up and move it 90 degrees in order to air up the tire without pushing it off the rim. I immediately went to the front of the lawn mower and tried to lift it. I tried several times and I couldn’t move it, not an inch. Chandler walked over and offered to help and I told him, “Baby, if I can’t lift it, you can’t lift it.” I asked him if we could each get a side and try it together, but before I could get a plan in motion, Chandler bent down, lifted the lawn mower, walked it 90 degerees, and set it down. Then he very casually walked to the air compressor to air up the tire for his Mom.



I couldn’t believe it.



I just stood there.



I’ve known that Chandler was growing up. I’ve known that he was getting taller and thicker and well, yes, OLDER. But I didn’t know he was STRONGER than me.



It was like, in that instant, everything changed.



No longer will he call for me to help him do something he can’t physically do.



As a matter of fact, I’ll be calling him.



I’m not saying he’s grown and I’m two falls away from assisted-living. I’m just saying that God used that to tell me something precious.



Time is God’s. Not mine. I can’t manipulate it, beg for it, get it back. I can’t rewind to yesterday and say what I wanted to say. I can’t fast forward ten years and see if my kids will be okay. I have to live with my whole heart TODAY. If my kids need me to be their hero today, then tomorrow can’t be an option for me.



Chandler turns twelve in 8 days. On a timeline, that would mean that I’ve already used up 66% of the time God gave me to parent and protect him. I know that I’ll have opportunities when he’s an adult to help him and influence him and pray for him, but the “raising up a CHILD” kind of ends when he’s a man.



I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to be old and look back at all the things I could have done, should have done, but didn’t do.



I pray that we will love ridiculously. I pray that everyday we do or say something that will give Christ freedom in our home and the hearts of our children. I pray that we will fix what’s broken now, and not let our kids take “broken things” into their futures.



As Kenny Chesney says, “Don’t blink. A hundred years goes faster than you think!”