It’s the final stretch before summer vacation for my children, just one week left and I have mixed feelings. A part of me is ready to get it over with.
No more waking kids up early, rushing out the door and making sure things haven’t been forgotten. No more rushing from one school to the next and then back out the door a few hours later to pick up. No more “Have you done your homework yet?” or checking grades online. No more emails to teachers or parent/teacher conferences.
But then I think about the fact that it also means just one more year of high school for my oldest and the end of middle school for my daughter. As I look forward to each school year ending, I am only getting closer to my children growing up.
Isn’t that like us, though? We are always so ready to get one stage over with and then suddenly we find ourselves wishing for that stage to be back.
Life is just too short and it’s not worth getting so sucked up in what really amounts to a moment that we lose sight of the joy and value of that time. If you really think about it, they are just moments. They seem like forever but once it has passed, you then understand how fleeting it really is.
This past school year I tried to attend as much as possible a prayer group that met the 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesdays of every month. It’s called “Moms in Touch” and it is an internationally recognized group where women gather in homes, schools or churches to pray for their children.
It’s quite a diverse group, with moms who have babies to those who have children in college. One of the moms in particular had asked for prayer for her baby who was teething. The baby wasn’t getting much sleep and neither was she. To her, it really was a big deal. It was her life. But to me, all I could think about was how fleeting that time really is.
So as I asked for prayer for things, I’m sure the mom with kids in college was thinking the same thing, it is so fleeting. But at the time it can seem all consuming.
I try to remind myself of this every-so-often, just so that I don’t miss out on enjoying what I have while I have it. Perhaps we all need that reminder of how fleeting our moments with our children really are.
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