COMMODITY TRADING

Here is a big fat warning to anyone out there who is just getting started on this crazy wonderful strange perplexing path called "Parenthood." When the "old-timers" (unfortunately, I almost count!) warn you to "enjoy them; they grow up too fast," they should be wearing neon orange vests, waving giant red flags and standing by enormous LED-lit billboards flashing "CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!"

Blame it on having an unscheduled 9 days holed up together last week, or the fact that I have only 1 semester left with a preschooler at home, but I am missing those days terribly! I have been going before God lately with a whole lot of "Why's?" Not the "I don't trust You" kind of why's that invade certain other areas of my life. These are the "this is so confusing; I thought I had THIS part figured out and then you switched it up again and I'm trying to make sense of things but now I'm befuddled all over again...." kind of why's.

Unlike most little girls I know, I did not grow up with the fairytale dream of my Prince Charming and a white dress and a tidy house with the white picket fence. (O.K., I DID dream about the tidy house.....) It's not that I thought that was bad. My mom stayed home and raised my brother and I all the way through high school without taking a job. She managed to stay active and productive and create a real HOME, somewhere I always felt safe and loved and listened to. I have always been very impressed with her for this in a world that may have been more hostile to homemakers then than it is even now. I don't know why I never invisioned myself doing the same thing; it's one of the few things I don't analyze completely into the ground. I don't know WHY to that either.

Anyway, my dream was to go to college (I LOVED schoolwork; not school, but schoolwork - I was a freak, I know.) Then I wanted to get some great job where I traveled for meetings, with great-looking, girly power suits and a sharp alligator-skin brief case. Maybe I would meet someone, and we would date forever, but probably not marry. (Don't ask about intimacy; I never bothered to factor that in to my plans. I was a teenager, O.K.? It was all going to be EASY!)

I am SO TREMENDOUSLY THANKFUL God knows this heart He made better than I do!!! He knew what He designed it for and what it would need to get there. And He turned all my best-laid (completely stupid unrealistic) plans right on their ego-pumped heads. I'll save all the details of our family development for another day, but He gave me these three great wonders of humanity and let me call them my children.

Since I was born, I have by nature been extremely diligent in whatever I set my mind to. If my mission was now Motherhood, it was never a question for me that this would be any different. The problem was, I didn't feel like I was very maternal by nature, so this became my fervent prayer. I listened to the sage advice of those who have long since left the baby-raising days. Too many of them offer it for it to not be true. "ENJOY YOUR CHILDREN" I purposed in my heart to ENJOY the cheerios on my carpet, the pudding prints on the wall, the incessant screaming to get my attention when I haven't responded within two seconds. REALLY! I went from extreme impatience to a lot more of it - all because God found it to be a worthy goal of my heart. I had to listen and obey, but HE bestowed these abilities upon me. It was a process. It took time and lots of prayer and Bible study and a purposeful retraining of my brain.

And now, just when I'm at the peak of love with this insane craziness that is my little people.....they are going to school. I relish the conversations we have every morning on the way there. And I feel an uneasy emptiness as they first leave to go to class.

I realize this could easily become co-dependence on my children for my self-worth if I am not careful. God asked me to quit homeschooling in part because that was much of my reasoning for doing it. I know I have talents and service to explore outside of being "Mommy" to my children, but why now? Why didn't I have this longing and confidence at the beginning, before making so very many mistakes? Why is it so true what "THEY" always say - that as mothers our calling is "work ourselves out of a job?" I love this job! I don't WANT to ever finish it. And I know I never really will entirely. I know because I STILL need my mother more than I bother to tell her. But TIME is such a precious, rare, priceless commodity. I wish I could take each wonderful phase my children encounter (the one RIGHT NOW is ALWAYS the best one!) and bottle them up forever and ever and ever?!

Yes, each precious passing moment is unique, special, and can never ever again be returned. No one can find it in the street and bring it to my door. Too much time is wasted in this world. Time spent on work, traded for money. Time spent on fears, traded for wimpy choices. Time spent on doubt, traded for discontent. Time spent on me, traded for the hurt of those around me. I believe this is one of the world's biggest problems. Poorly spent time. I believe it is one of life's greatest temptations and one of an individual's most difficult balancing acts. Given two or three choices of well-spent time (husband or children, church or family, personal study or fellowship), how do you choose? How much time - and when - do they each receive their due attention? Of all the commodities we are given in this life - finances, education, even wisdom and beauty, I wouldn't trade time for any one of them. God, please help me to make CONSISTENTLY wise use of my time.