Live in the Moment

With this pregnancy I have found myself doing alot more sitting than I'm used to and alot more living in the moment, although not intentionally. I really am ashamed at how many moments I have missed throughout the years because I've refused to allow myself to just sit and soak in the moments.  We live in a culture where we are praised for being overly busy. We call this being productive- a real go-getter.  I call this missing out on life.  In the time I have allowed myself to just sit and be available to my children I have become so much closer to each of my children.  I have read more books, sung more nursery rhymes, answered deep questions about God,  listened to fears of not being the only boy anymore in about 2 months, made up stories about bunnies and ponies while my 3 year old and I sat and cuddled on the couch.  I've always known that my children are blessings, but over the last few weeks I have really come to see how fleeting these childhood days truly are.  And it makes me sad how we as mothers try to rush through the different stages of life looking for better days, not realizing that these are the better days.  Each stage of life is a precious stage.  One day before we know it our house will be quiet and clean and we will look back on these days wishing that we would have enjoyed the moments more.  Soak in the laughter of your children, the smell of a freshly bathed baby, the army of children piled in your bed because of a thunderstorm, the endless questions about frogs, indians, and fossils.
Take it all  in and live in the moment. 

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out? You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.”
 Jerry Spinelli (not sure who this is, but loved the quote)

Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Selah.
Psalm 39:5

Most Important Goal in Motherhood

Each year we as mothers consider a list of goals we would like to accomplish during the course of the new year. Mine include spending more time in prayer, more time in the Word, more quality time with my children, and less time on the internet. The days of childhood is only but a season and we need to remember what the most important goal of motherhood really is- the salvation of our children's souls! A quote in a book called Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney puts it well:

What is the ultimate purpose of a phileo kind of love? It is nothing less than the salvation of our children's souls. This is the chief end of mothering. Our goal is not that our children be happy, fulfilled, and successful. Granted, we may desire these things for them. But our hightest objective should be that our children would repent from their sins, put their trust in Jesus Christ, and reflect the gospel to the world around them.

J.C. Ryle offered the following admonition:

This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children. In every step you take about them, in every plan, and scheme, and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, "How will this affect their souls?"..... the chief end of their lives is the salvations of their souls.

While the salvation of our children is our highest aim, our tender love is not sufficient for this task. Only the Holy Spirit is able to reveal the truth of the gospel. However, our tender love can be an instrument in God's hands. I am convinced that no one has more potential to influence our children to receive and reflect the gospel than we do as mothers.

John Angell James in Female Piety illustrated this very point:

At a pastoral conference, held not long since, at which about one hundred and twenty American clergymen, united in the bonds of a common faith, were assembled, each was invited to state the human instrumentality to which, under the Divine blessing, he attributed a change of heart. How many of these, think you, gave honour of it to their mother? Of one hundred and twenty, about one hundred! Here then are facts, which are only selected from myriads of others, to prove a mother's power, and to demonstrate at the same time her responsibility.

What greater privilege could we possibly have in all the world than to lead our children to the Lord? Let us not for one moment underestimate the power of a tender love.

One woman expresses the enormous responsibility this way:

I seldom feel lilke much of an adventurer- standing in the kitchen, pouring cereal into bowls, refilling them, handing out paper towels when the inevitable cry comes: "Uh oh. I spilled." But sometimes at night the though will strike me: There are three small people here, breathing sweetly in their beds, whose lives are for the moment in our hands. I might as well be at the controls of a moon shot, the mission is so grave and vast.