Do you ever find yourself longing for the days when your kids were younger? It can be bittersweet to think back to when they were sweet and cuddly newborns, or toddlers who said the cutest things, painted pictures for you, and always greeted you with the biggest hugs, because they may not do those things anymore. Or maybe sometimes you find yourself missing the person you used to be, back when you had more time for date nights and girls’ nights and personal pursuits and your mind wasn’t swimming with soccer schedules, sibling squabbles, and mountains of laundry. Change can be hard, but believing the grass was greener behind us can block us from the beauty we’re meant to experience in the present.
A trip down Memory Lane
As a military family who relocates every few years, memories of the seasons of our family’s life are, for us, inextricably tied to place. So when I had the chance to visit the town where our first baby was born, the place where I became a mother, memories were waiting for me around every corner. I drove past the hospital where my son spent his first week in the NICU, past the house where we spent our days as a family of 3 and then a family of 4. I walked through the park where we used to play, by the library where we met friends for story time, and along the train tracks where as a 2-year-old my son loved to watch the trains go by.
The nostalgia pumped strong through my veins as I saw these places again after they had been out of sight for so long. I ached for those days, because even though I know it often didn’t feel easy for me back then, I could see afresh how overflowing with beauty that time was, and that much beauty was overwhelming.
So, naturally, I grieved a bit that my little boy is getting tall now and he doesn’t watch Daniel Tiger anymore or play with trains or sleep with his Ruff-Ruff. As I walked through a gift shop at one of the places we used to visit, I felt the urge to find some souvenir to bring back to him from my trip. I searched and searched but found nothing that was really worth purchasing, and I realized that I was looking for a way to bridge him back to those days more for my own sake than for his. I was longing for those days when he was little, but he is not little anymore. So I walked out of the shop and spoke to myself the word God had been whispering to me that week: “Forward.”
The truth is, back in those early days, things didn’t always feel so sweet and simple. I love motherhood, but I haven’t always worn it well. It has been a journey for me over the past decade that has involved a lot of growing pains- sometimes more pain than growing as I’ve resisted the changes required of my character. At times, even now, I long for a bit more of my pre-mom sense of identity. But as I walked those old familiar streets, I realized that the person I want to be is not that young new mom, and it’s not the more free-spirited woman I was before kids, either. The person I want to be, the person the Lord is gently and intentionally molding me into, is not behind me. She is ahead.
“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 1:6 (NIV)
With the hope we have in Christ, who sanctifies and transforms us along the way, we can look back on the beautiful mess of the past and the present and see that it is the means through which He has been bringing about our growth. I can trust in His promise to continue to gently mold my character until, by His grace, I shall someday find myself an old woman full of joy and gentleness, someone closer to Jesus and more like him than I am today. That is who I long to be, and the only way there is forward, in daily communion with my Savior and Redeemer, the Giver of good gifts.
The same is true of our children. The sweetest version of them is not behind, in the days of sticky fingerprints and chubby cheeks. Yes, there are sweet memories back there, but the sweetness is not limited to the past. The Lord pours out His good gifts in every season. My son may not play peekaboo with me anymore, but he’d play Monopoly with me any day (and win). He no longer begs me to watch all his playground stunts, but my not-so-little boy tells me now about what God has been teaching him and what his dreams are for the future, dreams that are beginning to unfold even now. I haven’t lost him, I’ve only gained more as I get to see who he is becoming. The fact that he has grown, and continues to grow, is GOOD. It is beautiful. And I’d want nothing less for him.
We get a thrill when the new buds of spring first appear on the trees, but once they blossom into full and fragrant blooms, do we miss that less-developed form they took in their earliest days? There is a joy and a rightness in seeing the flower in full bloom, even if a few leaves (or toy trains and stuffed doggies) must fall to the ground in the process. It is growing into its full potential, and that was always the hope.
“Let our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, and our daughters like corner pillars fashioned for a palace.” (AMP)
Our children are not trinkets to preserve on the shelf. They are living, flourishing people made in the image of their Creator, who Himself is LIFE. We don’t need to mourn the loss of our children’s childhood, or the old versions of ourselves, or the old seasons of life. Growth was always the goal. What a gift it is to move into the fullest versions of ourselves as we place our lives, and our children’s, in God’s hands, growing forward with Him.
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