Each season requires different things from us.
Some seasons require a lot more time and energy, while other seasons require nearly no restrictions on our time.
Do you know which season it is for you?
You may need to follow your little one to the bathroom stall during the last few minutes of every fourth quarter game right now, just like I do.
If that describes your season, then do it. With the right attitude!
If your season is waking up in the middle of the night to feed your baby, savor those snuggles and the calm you can bring that little one.
Each season does not seem to go quickly, but you will be in a season soon enough in which you cannot even hold your child.
Our pastor’s wife shared this with us a few years ago: “The days are long, but the years are short.”
The days of parenting feel long.
It can be exhausting as you patiently (and impatiently, let’s be real!) correct your kids on how to treat other people.
It can be difficult at times to not stoop to their level and act out as they are in those moments.
We want them to cooperate right now.
We want them to fall in line right now.
We want them to stop arguing right now.
I get it!
Remember, the goal of parenting is to turn these little kids into good adults, who sustain themselves and interact well with others.
We have to model that!
We get to model that!
When I give in to my emotions and lose patience with how slowly my kids are responding to my requests (read that as demands), I am not demonstrating how an adult should interact with others.
I need to rise above the situation and show them the best way to respond.
I need to patiently wait for their emotions to catch up with their brains.
So while these days feel long, as if they will never end, the years are flying by.
I think back to summers as a kid.
My parents owned a campground, and being out of school meant there was more time to play and explore with my brothers.
As summer started, time would never end.
The days were so long, full of lots of play.
There was also lots of work to be done, helping my dad fix things and build things.
As I grew older, each year the summers seemed to end more quickly.
The number of days was still the same, but the time seemed to slip by faster with each year.
As an adult now, it only seems to go faster!
Those who are still older than I am say it this way: Time is fleeting.
Yet I do not get upset with that.
It is a reality of our experience.
Instead, I use it as a reminder to step fully into each moment as I experience it.
To get it right with your Family, you must step fully into each season.
Change the diapers.
Wipe the snotty noses.
Wipe those poopy butts.
Watch the soccer games.
Admire every piece of “art.”
Calm down the tears after each nightmare.
Kiss the bruises and bandage the scraped knees.
It is in doing those mundane and inglorious activities that you gain permission to help heal the broken heart or the confusion of not getting the deserved promotion later in life.
If you want to get access to leading your children in the heart-to-heart conversations later in life, you must earn their trust in the everyday things now.
They will want and need advice from a stable-minded adult, who can guide them with wisdom.
You get to demonstrate that mental stability now, when they are learning what it means to experience different emotions.
Rise above it in your thinking, so you can rise above their level of acting out.
What does this season require of you with your Family?
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