Dear Young Mom, When It Seems Too Hard and You Want To Press The Easy Button

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Jacob is twelve, yet if feels as if yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital. My boys are 19 days away from the last day of school. Even they realize the accelerated stride of life. How did fall to spring arrive and depart with such haste?

I want to run up to every young mom I see, grab her by the shoulders, and tell her not to brush off the well-meaning comments to enjoy and relish every second with her littles. To take that tiny hand and hold it until the tiny hand pulls away first. To stop even when time feels rushed, simply to count the dots on the lady bug. To stretch out the night time prayers and snuggles an extra minute or two. To say yes to the request to spin them around in circles just one more time.

I want to say to these moms that all the energy and love they are pouring in that seems to go unnoticed isn’t unnoticed at all. It only feels that way. It’s building something holy. Holy work is hard work.

I want to tell these moms to let themselves look silly. Run in the park when it feels ridiculous because others moms seem well-dressed and put together. To lay on a blanket finding pictures in clouds. To tell stories that have no ending.

I have encouragement for you young moms. The ones who have little ones who exhaust you until you have nothing left to give. The ones who are touched and talked to until you reach the point of wanting to hide in a dark closet. The ones who struggle with days that feel nothing was accomplished and you feel you don’t measure up. I have words for you I hope give your heart what it needs today to keep doing the hard and holy work of fulfilling your calling.

Dear Young Mom,

You are in the most precious season of life. Doesn’t always feels so precious, I know. The fatigue, sleepless nights, unshowered days, makeupless face. A messy house and no energy left for friends and fun.

My husband used to say, “These are the best days of your life.” Funny, he’s said this for many years, at various stages. He is always right. At each phase, it’s been the best days of my life. Even the hard ones are the best ones. The hard days are the ones I’m most aware of my need for Christ and most aware of His Presence in the daily muck.

Lord willing, one day you will stand at a graduation ceremony, and all you will see when you look on that stage will be a little boy blowing bubbles in the driveway or a little girl twirling in her princess dress in the kitchen. And you will wonder where the time is hiding from you. Surely there is more. More of those little days of innocence.

Time is something we can’t rewind. We don’t receive a do-over. It’s a gift we receive and have a choice how we will use it. The season you are in will not last forever. Each day passes at the same pace. Each season moves along steadily. We can’t slow it. We can’t backtrack to do it differently. We have one chance at the hard and holy work of raising these littles into spiritual giants in a culture that wants to devour them.

Young mama, put your game face on. Dig those heels in with fierce determination to choose the road less traveled, the narrow path. Don’t follow the masses of culture in parenting. Pull your children in close, hold them tightly for this season because the season of release is upon you with a speed you won’t believe.

This isn’t new. Most moms from past generations would agree, time moves fast. You, however, are parenting in a culture unlike any we’ve ever experienced. Your calling is placed on an incline. To do what’s right is hard. To raise these kids in a see all, share all world. Hard isn’t an appropriate word. 

When my boys were little, I didn’t see how the world around me parented. I looked to God’s Word and to christian parenting books. Social media didn’t taunt me with pictures of perfection in every home but mine. And social media didn’t provide me an escape from digging into that hard and holy work that I felt desperate to run from.

It’s more than taking every moment captive. It’s beyond that. It’s taking intentional days, intentional moments, and intentional parenting to new heights. You, young mama, must become a warrior yourself. In the gentlest of ways, you must fight back against the invisible push of culture rushing towards your family.

Sweet mamas, you are precious in His sight. You have been entrusted with His children to raise. They aren’t yours to keep forever. They are a gift to you for a brief season of life. Rise up to your calling.

The crushing pressure of life will make you crave the easy button. When you are desperate to simply get through the grocery store with no meltdowns, the easy button is to place an iPhone in your child’s hand. Choose not the way of the world. Instead, enter the hard and holy work that moms from every generation until now have walked. Teaching self control, discipline, restraint, and behavior in ways that will embarrass you or make you feel like a failure. Just remember, you aren’t parenting for the approval of anyone in that store. You have a hard and holy calling. Work for the well done from your Heavenly Father.

Success in the eyes of the world looks very different from success in the eyes of God. What looks like failure to the world can be a victory for raising your miniature spiritual giants.

When you are exhausted from fighting nap times and bed times and all you want is a few minutes of peace, the easy button will call your name. Tempting you to put an iPad in their lap so you can escape. Fight it. When they learn to obey and find contentment when they aren’t being entertained, you are priming them for some of the most beautiful lessons in life. When they’re not instantly gratified with entertainment, you are opening up the doorway for a life of patiently waiting on God.

Devices satisfy us in an instant. They immediately feed our cravings. They entertain us. They sweep us away. Placing devices in their little hands will distract them from the lessons God has for them right now. Lessons that will set them on a path for learning to listen for His still small voice. Lessons for learning that God works on His timing not our timing, not at the speed of our device. Lessons that we don’t get what we want when we want. Lessons that life is not all about us.

Life is sacred and holy. Time is a gift.

Culture will tell you that you are ridiculous if your little one doesn’t have screen time. Culture will even give you reasons to justify why it’s good for them. Culture will tell you how smart it will make them. How ahead of the pack they will move.

If there is one area I would say is most important in their little years and this fleeting season of life, it is screens. Screens will steal your time in a way you will not see as stolen. You won’t see what you are missing when you don’t know what you are missing.

In other words, if your child is behind a screen for a couple of hours, you will not see what was missed in that 2 hours. You will see the positives that happened. Maybe they learned some new letters or shapes. They are happy and smiling, so all seems well.

But what if the distraction of the screen was gone. What precious conversations could have taken place? What heart lessons could have formed? What could have been planted underneath the soil when eye to eye you are connecting?

There have been times that I know I would have chosen the easy button of technology had it been available to me when my boys were little. Now looking back, I can’t imagine what might have been lost in that time. I will never know, and I don’t want to know.

Who knows….maybe if they’ve never learned to depend on screens for entertainment, when they are 12, rather than running to a device to fill their time, they might just say, “Hey, mom, want to throw the football with me?” Maybe when they’ve spent their formative years building relationships through well-spent time, they will choose time together rather than wasting it on pursuits of pleasure.

To fight this culture in order to protect your little ones and cherish these days takes intention.

It’s being ok with looking ridiculous, for being different, not fitting into culture. It’s being ok taking the hard road.

The hard and holy work of parenting will be filled with tears, laughter, frustration, overcoming, heartache, joy, anguish, worry and fear, failure, triumph, laughter, confidence and peace. The hard and holy work of parenting is writing a story in your life and theirs.

Here’s the thing, it’s not just about the kids. What I want to encourage you with is this. This thing called time is a sneaky thing. While beautiful in the gifts time gives to us in the parenting years, if the time is not held closely and watched with intent, it will slip away.

Your job is hard. Motherhood is hard. Always has been, always will be. What you are creating is a beautiful story. Time fills the pages of this story.

When you stand at a new chapter- graduation, weddings, grandkids- what do you want to fill these pages? What story do you want time to tell?

One day you will have your time back. No one will place their sticky hands on the refrigerator you just polished. No will will spill a bowl of cereal on the freshly mopped floor. No one will be dumping out drawers of freshly folded laundry.

One day the incessant chatter will be no more. The pulling on your skirt will cease. Your aching back and tired arms will be stronger.

I pray for all us mamas, that one day we look back with contentment over how we chose to enter into the hard and holy work and how we managed this short window of time we’ve received as a gift.

Hard and holy work is a gift. Cherish the gift of time, remember it’s here today and gone tomorrow. This very moment will never be again. Make the most of each one.

Love to you!