Recently my son was whining, “I just want more space.” I know it’s important to him, and as someone who shares a 10x8 bedroom with a baby’s crib, I get it. Not only that, but Cori has outgrown her infant car seat and we shoved a Britax in my small backseat, “THERE!” It clicked and stayed in place, proving that miracles happen. I would prefer another Radian, but we can't afford it right now. We have dreams, we have needs. Paul sighed the other day, “we just need our inheritance." Although our estate manager (faithful grandpa) is trying to get our due from the death of Paul’s parents, we still haven’t seen the fruition of it. It hit me when my husband said that and I watched our children playing on the floor together, they are the inheritance.
The truth is, when I had my children I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought I would enjoy putting puzzles together all day, coloring bunnies and sheep with my kids on my lap, and organizing markers and crayons in cutesy Pinterest inspired mason jars. I thought a lot of things. To my surprise, parenting totally shell shocked me. I was left wondering “who am I?” after laying my life down day after day. Then, there were the days I would stand up and say “no, they don’t get all of me!” I sat at the computer and let them watch TV for hours, then put myself to sleep that night convicted to my core that my children deserve more. Again, I’d start over- die, die, die some more. I just read a quote, “Only when we die do we become fully alive,” and in many ways that has been the truth. I am happiest laying my life down. I go to sleep with a smile on my face when at bedtime, I sit with my kids on the floor reading books and telling them Bible stories. I feel at my best when we’re home schooling quietly around the table. The battle getting my butt to the table with them, or pushing through my own exhaustion to read them one single bedtime story is equivalent to the front lines in my own life. When I march there, often not fearless or resolute, just willing- I find my greatest breakthroughs.
They are my inheritance. Their visions of Jesus, answered prayers, obvious miracles, and happy glowing hearts against the backdrop of a hurting, dark world. They are my inheritance. God always meets their needs. God cares for them. I watch Him guard their sleep. He tells them secrets they pass on to me, “Mommy, you’re doing a good job, God says.” They dream and scheme about their future and I tell them they can do anything God puts in their hearts. Their lives are like rich and fertile soil, not just able to grow, but eager. As I sow seeds into their mighty destiny, one day I will stand before God and share in their works. That is absolutely beautiful to me. It is the first thing I think of when I wake up, and often the thing I lament upon as I fall into sleep. They are my inheritance. To be eternity minded is not to invest in yourself, but in the next generation.
It is so strange to me, I tell myself, “I went to school to teach high school students!” I love teenagers. Instead, most days I am cleaning poops, wiping snot, washing the 10th load of laundry for the week, and interpreting toddler jargon, that after processing the words over and over in my head, it turns out they are just telling me how they thought their poop smelled. Seriously. I start pouring myself out to God, “This is my calling? This is destroying my mind!” In many ways, it is. But, I am learning to love. I am learning to pour myself out, and fill myself up, and pour myself out again. That is a skill some never learn. I am learning to control myself, to manage my time well [sometimes], and the illustrious patience. Who I am, who I am becoming is because of all they put me through. The chaos I find peace amidst, the explosive poop I clean with ease, the conflict I handle effortlessly, the water I drink without a second thought, full of floaties from sharing. I am a very dead, fully alive woman. That is my inheritance, and I have my children to thank.
We live in such a success charged culture, it says that children will inhibit our efforts. They will destroy our future. Some think if life miraculously slips through the cracks of prevention, they should just suck the seed out. My opinion is, we’re not afraid of life, just death. In preventing our own, we allow another. And parenting will kill anyone. Parenting done right, will take a willing person, a hardly moldable piece of pottery, and water it down until it is a sopping wet mess of mud. The sun will shine though, it’s inevitable with those sweet giggles and life size stories the little ones tell! All the while, the very hands of God will build the pottery up again. Into something that just stays on the wheel, and falls into His hold, willing to be shaped. The piece won’t dry, and it’s so much better that way. It’ll melt into constant change, and slowly become something new. Something sustainable. Something surrendered.
I thank God that He surprised me with a pregnancy 6 years ago. My life was never the same, in a sometimes tragic, but always beautiful way. I choose this path a thousand times over, and choose the vessel I have become, and am still yet to become. It is painful, if I’m honest, but it’s a quick fix to selfishness and I really needed that...and continue to need it.
My kids have eternal value. It’s because of who I become as a result of parenthood- glorious, heart wrenching, stinky, constant consuming, soul enrapturing parenthood. Then, who they will become because I surrendered to it all. I love you, “my little lambs,” you are my richest inheritance.
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