This past Sunday I once again lamented that I was standing outside the sanctuary with a hyper toddler and not inside listening to my pastor’s sermon. After a pep-talk from a couple of other mothers on their way to help set up for Vacation Bible School that night,I shuffled back into the lobby of the church to try my best to ride through this tough season with my toddler.
Sitting on a pew in the lobby, while Jonathan dragged a trash can behind him and banged a hole puncher he’d found on the pew, a thought occurred to me, or maybe God was trying to remind me: “Jonathan will be this age for such a short time. I may not hear a sermon for the next several months, another year, or longer, but someday my little one will be grown and I’ll be able to hear all the sermons I want. What I won’t be able to do is hold my little boy in my lap anymore.”
This though reminded me of something I’d read earlier that weekend in a book I was given after Jonathan was born entitled, “Stories for a Mom’s Heart.”
“To My Grown-Up Son”
My hands were very busy through the day;
I didn’t have much time to play
The little games you asked me to —
I didn’t have much time for you.
I’d wash your clothes, I’d sew and cook;
But when you’d bring your picture book
And ask me please to share your fun,
I’d say: “A little later, son.”
I’d tuck you in all safe at night,
And hear your prayers, turn out the light,
Then tip-toe softly to the door . . .
I’d wish I’d stayed a minute more.
For life is short, the years rush past. . . .
A little boy grows up so fast.
No longer is he at your side.
His precious secrets to confide.
The picture books are put away;
There are no longer games to play.
No good-night kiss, no prayers to hear —
That all belongs to yesteryear.
My hands, once busy, now are still.
The days are long and hard to fill.
I wish I could go back and do
The little things you asked me to.
— Author Unknown
I don’t want to look back on my early days with Jonathan with regret or a wish I had spent more time with him. My own time will come soon enough. For now it is “our time” — Hubby, Jonathan and me. And I will treasure it, as I should.
(This photo just makes me think of how fast my little Jonathan is growing. He is starting to look less and less like a baby and more and more like a little boy!!)
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This is part of Cecily’s and Mama Geek’s Photo Story Friday.
