Time Flies

Time flies.  Cliché, I know.  But it’s a phrase that perhaps we’re all guilty of tossing around without really considering the truth behind it.  Maybe this isn’t necessarily the case for kids.  You see, my husband and I have planned to take our 3-year old to see “Monsters University” this Saturday.  For Oliver, time is creeping by.  Saturday seems like an eternity away from today.  Today is Friday.  My, how perspective changes with age!

The point is, whether we like it or not, time does, in fact pass…and usually, rather quickly.  If we’re not careful, it has a tendency to slip away from us until we have none left.  Humans, by nature, are typically procrastinators, right?  This is why I’m writing today.  My husband and I have recently been given an incredible reminder of this school of thought.  More than likely, you need a reminder too.

This past April, we attended the Orange Conference in Atlanta, GA (check it out: Click Here).  We’ve been several times, and it’s always amazing.  This year, the theme was “Focus.”  Here was the bottom line to everything that was communicated at the conference: When you see how much time you have left, you tend to do more with the time you have now.  The problem is, none of us really know how much time we have left.  And it’s difficult to even visualize how much time we think we might have.

So the simple, yet powerful, visual that was given at the conference was marbles.  Picture this.  A jar filled with the number of marbles, representing one for each week that you have left with your child before they graduate from high school, and theoretically move out of the house.  (and even if they don’t move out at 18, let’s just be honest—they’ve moved on).  Right now, on Friday, July 12, 2013, I have 719 weeks left with my Oliver, and 823 weeks left with my Isaac.  Did I sit down with a calendar and count this out?  Nope!  I downloaded the “Legacy Countdown” app on my phone, and let it do the math.  (Try it out…now!)

 

719 weeks.  823 weeks.  That’s not very many, if you really think about it.  Believe me.  I know this because we currently have 2 jars sitting on a table in our kitchen, filled with marbles.  We see the marbles decreasing each week.  And my kids are only 3 and 1.  Perhaps, yours are older.  You may have a considerably smaller number of marbles left in your jar.  Hit home yet?  I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly worried that I’m not doing a good enough job as a parent.  I second guess my discipline techniques.  I go to bed at night sometimes wondering if I paid equal attention to both my boys.  I question whether or not I’m teaching them enough about Jesus…or if I’m living my life in a way that shows them Jesus. 

So what do I do?  Find the answers in a book, right?  Well, any parent knows that no book has all the answers to crack the impossible code of perfect parenting.  However, the whole concept of time and its significance that was discussed at the Orange Conference is actually wrapped up in a book called, Losing Your Marbles/Playing for Keeps (Find it here).  It's written by Reggie Joiner, Elizabeth Hansen, and Kristen Ivy.  I highly recommend that you read it.

But in case you don’t (or even if you do), I have felt compelled to begin a blog series on the points of the book.  I’m offering you the “Cliff’s Notes” version, if you will.  From one parent to another, it’s inspiring to learn practical ways to reach out to our kids.  We live in a time where we’re begging for people to tell us how to do things. Hence, the Pinterest craze.  But, it’s also encouraging to hear that we’re not the only ones struggling to reach our kids.  So over, the next several weeks (hopefully, posted by Saturday each week…keep in mind I have a 3-year old and a 1-year old), I plan to put out a blog series on the 6 basic things that a child desperately needs over time. We absolutely need to be serious about the time we have left with our children.  And we simply are not going to reach them if we don’t even know what they need in the first place.

I hope that you journey through this with me.  I am certainly no expert on the subject of parenting.  Remember, my kids are only 3 and 1!  I am writing this as I am learning for myself.  I am currently figuring out how to apply these truths to the way I am raising my own children.