I Did a Double-Take

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."

~Author Unknown

One of the nicest things about having a teenager is that I can leave the kids at home! So I went out the other day to do an errand. I came back in less than an hour, walked into the house, through the dining room and into the kitchen.

Then I stopped in my tracks and backed up. Something caught my eye.

It was this:

I knew right away ... my youngest child had pulled the chair out and was watching out the window, waiting for me to get home. That may not be a big deal to some people, but it was HUGE to me. Sometimes I underestimate my importance in their lives.

Sometimes I get so caught up in the things I want to do (decorating, reading, talking to my friends, blogging, and the list goes on), that I forget my most important job in the world. Sometimes I get tired at the end of the day, tired of managing people, tired of hearing them bicker, that I lose sight of the big picture. Sometimes I sign up for too many things because I feel obligated to help the teachers, the PTO, the church, that I forget about the biggest job I volunteered for. Is my fear of letting everyone else down causing me to let these guys down?

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." ~Proverbs 22:6

God loaned these beautiful creatures to me and gave me the job of raising them to be Christians, to be good people, to be his light in the world.

My window to do this is closing fast. They are growing so fast my head spins. They were just babies yesterday, and now one of them will be driving in a few years. And when they are ready to go out on their own, will I be able to look back and say that I made the most of the time I had?

I think I need to print this picture of the chair and hang it in my kitchen so I can remember that most important goal every day.