Power Of A Moment

“The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children.”—Elaine Heffner

One of our very favorite places to eat is Sal’s Pizza. The staff is friendly, the atmosphere relaxed and casual, and the pizza is fresh and very tasty.

My husband, daughter and I stopped in for dinner yesterday afternoon. It was raining heavily and the sky was dark, but inside the restaurant was bright and cheery.

Just as we started to eat, a mom and her young kids tumbled inside, a flurry of activity and laughter. As the mom ordered the pizza for her family, the kids began to run around, full of energy. They were not being obnoxious, just kids being kids.

I heard the young man behind the counter tell the mom that it would be a 20 minute wait.

I could not help but think back to my early days of mothering when such a long wait combined with high-energy kids would have sent me into meltdown mode.

Not this mom.

She rounded up her kids and took them outside. Sal’s is located in a strip mall with a large overhang that protects the customers from the elements.

For the next several minutes, she joined them in exuberant play.  They ran, danced, twirled, and chased. I saw her youngest child gleefully clap her hands as she watched her siblings from her seat in the stroller. It wasn’t long before she was lifting her chubby little arms in the air, a signal that she wanted to be able to join in the fun.

Her mom willingly lifted her up, spun her around, and placed her on the pavement. With a huge grin, she gleefully toddled around as fast as her legs  would take her in an attempt to keep up with her brothers and sisters.

The mom took the lead in leaving the protected covering of the roof to dash out into the rain, arms opened wide, face upturned and wreathed in smiles, spinning wild. Her kids did the same…and my heart was filled with joy as I witnessed their utter and complete joy as they fully lived these precious moments.

An ordinary rainy Monday afternoon at the local pizza place had been turned into a time of magical fun and breathless laughter, all thanks to this mother who seized the opportunity to make what could have been a boring wait into a celebration.

On our way out, I could not resist telling her what an amazing mom she was and how much I had enjoyed watching her have so much fun with her kids.

Her face registered surprise, then broke into a big smile as she thanked me. “I just love everything about being a mom,” she said.

“It shows,” I told her. “I really wish I had done more of this kind of thing when my kids were little. Keep up the good work. You never get this time with them back.”

She waved in farewell and  took her son’s hand as he excitedly led her back into playtime.

We walked back to our car, their laughter ringing in our ears.

I thought about many things as we drove home.

Our son is away until the end of the month at an advanced studies program at a local boarding school.  Our daughter will leave tomorrow for a three week trip to Europe. The house will be so silent for a time.

One of my dearest friends had texted me earlier in the week to say that her 25 year old nephew had been killed in a motorcycle crash. Every mama’s worst nightmare. How my heart grieves for his mom as she confronts such an unimaginable loss.

We never know how much time we have with the ones we love.

The days of parenting our little ones can seem long and endless. But the truth is, those days are strung together like a shimmering necklace for us moms to treasure in our hearts, long after those days are gone.

If you are in that season right now, truly cherish these moments. No, they will not all be fun. Oftentimes, it will seem like drudgery: dirty diapers, crumbs on the counter, spilled milk, mountains of laundry, sibling squabbles,  toys strewn about the house, doctor visits, homework battles, etc.

But if you can look above the day-to-day routine and remember that your children are miracles and gifts, you will be rich beyond imagining.

Don’t take things so seriously.

Smile. Laugh. Play more. Worry less. Pray hard.

Celebrate the little things. In the end, it is the little things that end up being the big things.

Search for joy and beauty in the midst of it all. It is there, I promise.

Study those sweet little faces. They change so fast.

Listen to their dreams…and dream right along with them. Share in their sense of wonder.

Treasure the feel of their little hands folded into yours.

Keep in mind that the childhood years are not the time to be overly concerned about having a perfectly clean house.

Turn off the TV and the computer at some point during the day and truly be all there with your kids. This day will not come again.

Don’t be so uptight. There is no such thing as a perfect parent or a perfect child.

Know with certainty that you are God’s “Plan A” for your child(ren).

Love with everything you have.

Above all, don’t ever take this time for granted. This time and those little souls have been entrusted to you.

Make the most of it.

Then watch those ordinary days become extraordinary.

“Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful, but because they are fleeting.”—Richard Paul Evans

When I logged onto Facebook this morning, this was the first thing I saw…

This beautiful young woman’s name is Jessica Giddens. It had just been announced that she was voted homecoming queen at her high school. The man standing so proudly behind her is her father. He is a soldier in Afghanistan and he had flown home to escort her to the game.

The beauty of this moment brought tears to my eyes.

I love the look of sheer joy on her face…made all the more radiant by the presence of her father, I am sure. That moment would not have been so sweet without him standing there to share in it.

There is nothing like a father in a girl’s life.

My dad has been gone from this earth and my life for eleven years.

I still miss him everyday.

Last week, I was pulled over for not having a current inspection sticker on my car. (Turns out that the garage had done the inspection but had forgotten to add the new sticker. I was oblivious). While the officer wrote up the pink warning slip, my eyes filled with tears and I thought, “I wish my dad were here.”

The thought seemed to come out of nowhere and I felt a bit foolish, longing for my dad’s presence when I am 48 years old.

On the other hand, does any man protect you like your dad? (I am extremely blessed to have a husband who does. Yet, when my dad was still alive and he and my mom came to visit, he would always pull me aside and ask, “Is there anything you need me to do around the house? I’ll take care of it.” 🙂 ).

Yesterday, was my “baby” brother’s 44th birthday. He came over for a grilled steak dinner, complete with cheesecake topped with strawberries for dessert. (None of that was made my me…mercifully. I wanted him to enjoy his birthday dinner).

As I watched him interact with my kids and my husband and talk on the phone with our mom, I realized something: He has adopted much of my dad’s mannerisms. The way he stands with his hands in his pockets. His hearty laugh. The way he strolls around the house while talking on the phone and holds the door open for a lady.

I love my brother for himself but I also love that in many small ways, he gives my dad back to me.

If you are blessed to still have your dad with you, call him. Visit him. Let him know what he means to you. Life goes by fast and you only have one father. No, he is not perfect. But then again, neither are you.

Extend grace.

“Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.” —Ally Carter

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” —Mignon McLaughlin

And that is what Doug and I have done for twenty one years.

So, when confronted with a (temporary) empty nest,  we were ready for it because we are best friends.

But first we had a choice to make. Our lives have been in somewhat of a holding pattern lately due to a situation beyond our control. We had hoped we would know something by last Friday…but it was not to be.

Decision time: would we focus only on the one thing God has withheld for us, allowing it to cast a pall over our weekend? Or would we deliberately choose to set our sights on all of the rich blessings He has graciously given us?

We chose the latter.

He is always speaking. He had said no to something we had wanted (on our timetable) but I knew He had so many more “yeses” to share with us that day and I intended to find them.

He had given us a glorious day. We live in a beautiful place. We enjoy a good road trip, so we took off for the North Country.

We told our dog Buddy that we would be gone for the day. He was clearly broken up by this news.

As we headed out to the car, we spotted this:

A huge mama snapping turtle was determinedly crossing our front yard in search of a place to lay her eggs.

All creatures great and small
The Lord God made them all

Our first stop was the Sugar Shack, which was voted the #2 best place for breakfast in our state.

I am not typically a breakfast person but since a good friend and I had walked seven miles very early that morning, I was ravenous.

The staff was no-nonsense, the decor simple and rustic, and the food was delicious.

While we were enjoying our meal, my friend Karen texted me to remind me that the annual Lupine Festival was beginning that day. It was only a half an hour north so we decided to go. We had made the trip last year and it was lovely.

Turns out that this year…not so much.

I am not exaggerating when I say that we saw FIVE lupines. And five lupines definitely does not constitute a “festival.”

Last year, this was the scene  at one of the lupine fields:

This year, that same field looked like this:

Not a lupine in sight.

I must admit that I was disappointed that we had driven so far for nothing, but then I remembered a passage from Susan Spencer-Wendel’s book Until I Say Goodbye. 

“Events rarely happened as anticipated…but were perfect moments nonetheless. Because I did not have expectations…accept the life that comes…don’t force the world to be the one you dream. The reality is better.” (p. 348).

Accept the life that comes. That right there is a recipe for the stress levels in our lives to drop by several degrees.

Despite the fact that there were no lupines, there were still such beautiful things to see.

On the drive back south, Doug and I talked about our years of parenting. As I looked across the front seat at my husband of twenty-one years, the fifty year old man with silver hair morphed into the man he was when he was a father for the first time at thirty-two. I remembered our mutual wide-eyed panic when my parents left to return home when Josh was two weeks old. Could you do this by ourselves? Raise another human being?!

It had all seemed so scary at the time.

But with prayer, perseverance, and the ever-important sense of humor, we made it.

Were we perfect? Not even close. No such thing.

But we love our kids with our whole hearts and we did the best we could. We are a team. There is such a sweetness to that truth.

Our next stop was to a place called The Basin in the White Mountains. It is absolutely beautiful, peaceful, and serene.  I saw the fingerprints of God everywhere I looked.

We ended the day by having dinner with my mom and brother at a local eatery. Jeff joked that they were just cheap substitutes for the kids, but nothing could be further from the truth. Even if my family wasn’t family, I would have them as friends. We laughed the night away. (We also did a lot of shouting to be heard because we were sandwiched between a party of twenty and a party of seven!).

But it’s all good.

That was the first evening of the hockey playoffs between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins. Clearly, we are in Bruins territory but my brother proudly wore his Penguins hat and T-shirt. As we exited the restaurant, there were four guys in a convertible who were clearly offended (but good-naturedly so) at Jeff’s brazen Pittsburgh display.

Noticing this, I raised my arms in the victory sign and yelled, “Pittsburgh!!!”

We native Pittsburghers are black and gold to the bone.

(Sadly, my enthusiasm was misplaced, as Pittsburgh lost later than night. They are currently down two games. Here’s to a win for the third game!).

The last night of our empty nest, I headed to our church for Bible study. On the way there, I was praying not only for the safe return of the kids that evening but for the holding pattern we are currently in with no end in sight. At the church, I was reminded of God’s greatness, His love, and His goodness. That He is always at work, even when we cannot see signs of His hand.

These truths were still ringing in my ears when I pulled into my driveway…and saw this:

Isn’t that just like Him? To send me the sign of His promise, shining right through the storm clouds!

His promise that He is in full control at all times. That He can only do good to those who belong to Him.  That He keeps His promises…all of them.

As I said at the beginning of this post, He is always speaking.

At 9:15, the side door burst open and our kids tumbled into the kitchen, full of the energy unique to teenagers. Julia dropped her bags the instant she saw me and literally sprinted across the house to tackle me with a hug.

The next hour was filled with exciting stories of their adventures.  As the conversation wound down and fatigue started  to take over, they began to head for bed.

“So what did you do when we were gone?” our son asked. “Did you spend your all your time crying and missing us?” He was kidding. (I think).

I smiled at him and said, “Missing you, yes. A little bit of crying too. But Daddy and I had lots of fun.”

He returned my smile as he hugged me good night,

“The two of you always do.”

**********

I would say that  Doug and I will be ready for the empty nest when it comes for good in two years. We have lots of plans.

Of course, we won’t fully be alone…

🙂

“Making the decision to have a child is  momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”—Elizabeth Stone 

Photo credit: Google

I discovered this weekend that I am not as tough as I thought I was.

My kids left Friday morning for Canada with the high school band.

I envisioned myself meeting this day with deep serenity and a  calm spirit.

Instead, I was up early, making sure they had packed properly, had all their electronic and charging devices, passports, snacks, Canadian money, etc.

My husband told them something, then I would repeat it until he (gently) said, “Susan. Stop. It’s okay.”

Oh.

So I sat down, rather than following them around and watched the scene unfold around me as Josh and Julia got ready to leave in a last minute flurry of activity.

There were hugs and a round of “I love you’s”…and then they were gone.

And a part of my heart went with them.

I headed upstairs to have some quiet time, opened a book, and found this photo of a three year old Julia.

That’s when the tears began.

“For crying out loud,” I told myself. “Get a grip! They are only gone for a weekend!”

True. They were only a four hour car ride away in Montreal.

But they would be in another country. And since I don’t have a passport yet, I could not get to them easily if I needed to. That was what felt strange to me.

My kids were traveling to another country where they would have all kinds of fun and exciting experiences…without me.

That is the way it should be. As parents, we work ourselves out of a job. That is good and that is right.

Yet this trip was a reminder of just how fast our years of parenting had gone and that our kids were on the threshold of venturing out on their own to make their mark in this world and live their own stories.

Parenting is without a doubt the hardest job I have ever (and will ever) have. Nothing has made me feel so inadequate, exhausted, and imperfect. Or so exhilarated, joyful, and blessed.

Our son Josh is the strongest-willed child I know. He was  a generally sunny kid but when he wanted his own way, watch out! He intended to get it.

My mother was an absolute God-send to me here. She would counsel me, “Stand firm! You have to establish clear boundaries, that you are in control and he is not. If you don’t do the hard work now, it will be too late when he is fifteen and taller than you. Keep it up!”

So many times, it would have been much easier for us to just give in to our little red-headed tyrant but my mom’s encouragement (and lots of prayer!) gave us the backbone to do our jobs.

As a result, Josh is an absolute joy to us as a seventeen year old young man. God has taken that strong will and channeled it into someone who is extremely motivated, goal-oriented, and principled. He has many friends from all backgrounds, and his sense of humor, as well as dead-on impressions, keeps us all laughing.

Our daughter Julia was a bundle of curly, red-headed sunshine. Her blue eyes sparkled with life and joy and the sound of her giggles filled the house at all hours. She was passionate about  any and all animals, loved vanilla ice cream, and called me “Mama.”

Today, she is both an athlete and a girly-girl, our social butterfly, a musician, and is unafraid to zealously defend her views on a variety of topics. Despite having been a teenage girl myself, I really wasn’t prepared when my sunny girl began to display moodiness, sometimes act as if I were personally trying to ruin her life, and engage in copious amounts of eye-rolling.

It is a bumpy road ahead but I do enjoy the times when I get a glimpse of that sweet little girl again. I love that she still calls me “Mommy” even though she is fifteen and a half.

The late Rich Mullins once wrote a song entitled “We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are.” I thought of that song as I wiped away my tears and got on with my day.

I was so grateful that even when my kids cross the border into another country and I cannot go with them, that Jesus— who knows no barriers— does.  That knowledge brought such sweet peace to my heart.

This summer, both of our kids will be gone for weeks at a time. I figure this weekend was a trial run for that. I am happy to say that I passed with flying colors. 🙂

Several people asked how Doug and I did with the empty nest this past weekend. To be continued tomorrow!

What about you? Are you an empty nester? How did you deal with it? Any advice is appreciated!