The Pause Button

One of my daughter’s friends is a young mom.
She and her husband love being the parents of an adorable little girl.
This precious little one looks exactly like her Daddy.
This young couple is enjoying the journey of parenthood.

I got a message from this sweet mom.
We were planning to get together and do some antiquing and flea market shopping.
However distance and coordinating schedules will put that afternoon off for a bit longer.
She proceeded to tell me a story.

She and her daughter are sick with a cold.
They stayed home from church to rest and not pass their cold on to anyone else.
Miss E watched her Daddy leave for church.
She found her mother’s car keys.

She took off toward the front door.
Halfway there, she turned around and called out, Bye!
I could picture the scene in my mind.
I smiled as I continued reading.

I think my heart had a flash forward 16 years to her driving, the young mom wrote.
Since when does my baby know about needing keys to leave the house?
Where is the pause button?
My heart tugged as I read her words.

Where indeed?

It is every mother’s lament.
Where has the time gone?
They grow up too fast.
If only I can keep them little a while longer.

I remember bringing home each of my children from the hospital.
The older one was a baby when I went to the hospital to deliver their brother or sister.
However when I got home with a newborn in my arms, they somehow grew up overnight.
The little hands that held mind now seemed like the hands of a giant by comparison.

How could that much change happen in a few days?
They not only had the title of big brother or big sister, they filled that role in an instant.
They grew up before my eyes.
They were no longer a baby.

I understand this young mother’s lament.
There is a pulling away even from a young age.
There has to be.
But that doesn’t make it any easier.

Pulling away.
Independence.
Glancing over their shoulder as they walk in the other direction.
Activities that cause the tug on our heart to actually hurt.

Even if it is just across the room, they are still walking away.
You begin to see their back more than their front.
You see the writing on the wall; one day they will be leaving.
One day they will have a family of their own and experience that same tug on their heart.

It begins to happen when the umbilical cord is cut.
That cord must be severed, actually and metaphorically.
However with each solid food that is added, or cup that is filled, you can hear the tear.
With each wiggle off your lap to go play with something interesting over there, you hear it.

It is constantly happening, as it should be.
Where is the pause button?
Why can’t time stand still?
If we can capture a moment with a camera, why can’t we freeze that moment in real time?

Because God did not design it that way.
Our children are just on loan to us for a while.
They are His as we teach them to know Him, love Him, and serve Him.
There is no pause button on the road of life.

If we pause our children’s growth, despite how much we want to, we would hinder them.
We would squelch their growth in the Lord.
We would block the use of their gifts for His Kingdom plans.
We would be doing what we thought was better, but not what He deemed best.

And it hurts.
And it tugs our heart more than we want to admit.
And it makes us want to cocoon our little families in some safe place until the storm passes.
The storm of growth and walking away.

But we can’t.

So we watch them go to preschool and we cry more than they do.
We wave to them as they get on the school bus, but they are too busy talking to friends.
We sit in an audience and wonder if the one in the third row, second from left will see us wave.
We hand them the cars keys and stand on the driveway and wipe away the tear that falls.

We pack them up for college and wonder if they will get homesick.
We wonder if we will talk to them often.
We wonder if they are eating properly.
We wonder if they are getting enough rest.

All along we have been prepared.
All along we were saying goodbye.
All along we knew that the day would come when they would walk down the aisle and say, I do.
We just didn’t think it would be this soon.

Where is the pause button?

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
(Proverbs 22:6)

We are training our children to walk away.
We are training them to be independent from us but dependent on Him.
Walking away from us should always mean walking towards Him.
God is with them when we can’t be; God is always with them.

Our children walk away from us in good Hands.
They walk towards Him thankful that they have something solid to launch from.
They walk towards Him knowing they have the Solid Rock to stand on.
They will know all that if we have done our God-given job well.

It is a delicate balance that only has a fast forward button.
There is no pause button on this journey of life.
There are no rewinds.
It is forward, ever forward towards Him.