Only My Child Today

Adela and I spent thirty minutes pretending to take a nap. This involved lots of giggling, fake snoring, and whispering to each other to go to sleep. I loved watching her little nose wrinkle with her giggles. 

She is such a child.

Is is weird that I forget that? I look at her and I see her future. I look at her and I see the woman I hope she will become. I see the learning that must take place, the training up the road, the hard work of parenting. But today, as we laughed beneath a fuzzy blue blanket, my heart was full of joy because  she was nothing more than a child. 

Yikes, Lora! Just like everything else, you are only given whatever today holds. Not a drop more. And of course it is the same with your children. I have only the child that is mine today, not the grown-daughter of a distant tomorrow. Am I trusting God with my child's future? Or am I robbing joy from parenting my sweet, innocent, chocolate-faced preschooler? Am I trusting God to equip me enough to parent this child now so that the woman she will be come will be ready to face the world?

When "nap-time" was finished, Adela bounced to our box of learning activities. She grinned at me. "School time, Mama." And, as Micaela snoozed in her bedroom upstairs, Adela and I read books, pretended to be different animals, and practiced holding crayons and pencils correctly. She rainbow-colored four hens and wrote out the number 4 with wobbly lines. And I told myself not to fret. She was happy. She was learning. 

She is, right now, only my child of today. 

And Lord knows that I love her. 

God, thank you for pressing this truth upon my heart. It was far too much to try to keep hold of my little girls' future. I'll let you have that. Today I hold a giggling four year-old in my arms. And that is the joy of my heart.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 
Isaiah 26:3, NIV