Thursday, October 15, 2009

Do not despise the small things...

is the lesson before me these days.

Being a big thinker with big ideas and plans, with a motto to go and be and do and leave, all quickly and impatiently, means missing some small things.

I think of the big projects started and left unfinished. What if I'd taken the small steps, small things first path? Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. But it's an experiment to try now.

I had two boys three years old and under. And I was pregnant with number three. The quest to have children had resulted in one born and then died, one adopted, failure, failure, failure, another adopted, and a positive pregnancy test. Total time involved from one to double lines = 7 years.

I know it's a number of completion and perfection in the Bible. For me it was a number of terminal hurry up and wait. For an impatient like myself, it was years of sanctification.

Then came the night I stood in a room, belly so large it's own life within heaved me around. And I stood silently over the double twin beds that each contained a sleeping toddler. No, wait. The faces on those pillows had lost their toddlerarity. Tears streamed. I had missed some small things. Too many.

Years pass. Toddlers no more, now culturally called tweens live amongst me. Every day measuring themselves in height and will against me. Your time is limited, Mom. In height and will. It always was.

And so the renewed emphasis on the small things. To not despise them, but to laugh and cry in each moment over each one. It's a lesson of sanctification. Received with a heart of growing wisdom.

3 comments:

  1. I love the small things. They're like your post yesterday. They are the really good stuff of life.

    I once had a client tell me, "Everyone always places so much emphasis on a child's 'firsts' but nobody ever notices their 'lasts'. Notice you child's 'lasts'".

    I journaled the date he last time I carried FavoriteSon. PinkGirl is getting close. I wish I had noted the last time FavoriteSon snuggled up on the couch with me to watch tv or read a book or to just talk about his thoughts. I may have seen the last one of those precious times with him.

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  2. Yea, those "small things" are exactly why I'm overseeing my children with crayons. Again. Despite the threat to my sanity.

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  3. I just wandered back into the blogosphere this afternoon and what a great day to come back (love the new look, by the way). Thanks for the beautifully written reminder to look for the blessings in the small things!

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