The Most Important Job in the World

Baby dolls here are WELL loved.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I was at a function where I won this lovely baby quilt.

After I returned to my seat with it, my lovely elderly neighbor said, "well if your youngest is three it's time for another!" 

From her mouth to God's ear!

I am no spring chicken, and with the baby of the house being three just last Saturday I am actually able to string along coherent thoughts on occasion, use the bathroom without an audience, and sleep for hours at a time.  I even sneak away, with regularity, to a lovely restaurant in town where I sit in the corner with bacon cheese fries and way too much Dr. Pepper and read my Bible.  Of course, if God saw fit to bless us with another baby, all of that would go away.

But I'll take a baby over bacon cheese fries any day.

See, as a fall chicken, I know something I didn't know when I was first raising children two decades ago:

The days are long, but the years go by too fast.



1989

2012









So, this is my advice to young mothers - to the spring chickens still in the thick of sleepless nights, showerless days, and potty training.  To the moms dealing with temper tantrums (from 2 year old or 15 year olds), piles of laundry, and scattered toys:

Hold on, breathe in deep, and, above all, never waste a moment to show your children Jesus.

You see, there is no job you could ever have that is more important than the one you have now.  I don't care if someone offered you the presidency of the New World Order - it would pale in comparison to the heady task before you.

You are raising eternal souls.  Look at your children and know that these little people will live eternally.  And if they live eternally, they live somewhere eternally.  Do you grasp the importance of that today?  Because, one day you will very much grasp the gravity of that - and, very often, that realization comes well after your most potent parenting days have passed.

Eternally it will not matter what their GPA was, what college they went to (or if they did), how successful they were in their career...  It will not matter if they made varsity, or if they were prom king...  On that great and terrible day you will not care how big your child's house was or who they knew at City Hall. 

You will only care that they know Jesus. 

You will not care what was said of them at their high school graduation, their wedding day, or even at their retirement party.  All you will want to hear said about them will come from the lips of Jesus:

 

Father, this is my friend.  Her mother introduced us when she was young.  She is mine.

My advice to you, dear mother?   Etch the vision of that day in your mind.  It is the only moment you should care about in the raising of your children.