Time is going fast. Here are three reminders for exhausted moms and dads raising young children.
Our baby boy is only five days old and I already wish I could stop time.
Everyone told me that raising kids goes fast, but I didn’t believe them… until I had kids. I’ve watched eight years of my oldest child’s life fly by. Each passing month feels like a week, each week feels like a day, and each day feels like a minute.
As chaotic as life can be raising small kids, I wish I could slow it down or freeze time nearly every day.
Don’t Wish These Years Away
For those raising young kids right now, here are a few things we need to be reminded of:
1. You’re Spending Your Life to Raise Souls
Even though we’re physically exhausted, we are spending our lives for the right reasons. God entrusted us with these little people, and they are ultimately His creation for His glory. We are to steward them and raise them in a way that brings God honor and pleasure.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether we eat or drink, whatever we do, do it for the glory of God.”
This means that even wiping noses or backsides, clearing off tables or cleaning up floors, disciplining for hitting or teaching them to serve—whatever we do, as tired as we may be—we do it for the glory of God.
2. We Only Get This Season Once
I know it sounds trite, but if you’ve been raising kids for any amount of time, you know it goes fast.
As much as we wish we could rewind the clock, we can’t. Those moments when we want to take back what we said? We can’t. The times when we want to redo that season? We can’t.
All we can do is learn from the past and keep pressing on toward the upward calling of knowing Christ and helping the little ones we raise to do the same (Hebrews 12:1-4).
Wishing away the little years—or any stage of child raising—is not the right attitude. Rather, we should have total abandonment to do our best at raising kids well in that specific season, teaching them to obey what Christ has taught and commanded (Matthew 28:19-20).
