ForgottenWoman

In Eternity

To begin today, let me give you just a little bit of transparent insight into the mind and life of a blogger like me… I’ve been trying to write this article now for two weeks and the problem hasn’t been about forming words or sentences or ideas: it’s been about sitting down and doing it! Whew! Life takes us on whirlwind rides sometimes and catching our breath can be challenging. THAT is what my month of February looked like – but more on that later.

My heart has been drawn over and over to the motto that I claimed for my life, for my “mothering” about 37 years ago. It’s a simple question really, but the impact it has had on my life and mothering has been enormous. Ask any of my children and they could tell you with a little bit of sarcasm in their voices, “Is this going to matter in eternity?”

If you are a parent reading this and your kids came out of the womb as perfection then this article is not for you! If they already knew what good manners were, if they already knew how to put others before themselves, if they already knew how to walk into a room and determine to leave it better than they found it, if they already knew Who God is and what He has offered them… well; just go do whatever it is YOU want to do, because your children obiously don’t need parenting. Well, I hope this will be an encouragement for the rest of you. And yes, this motto has carried me into my Grandmommying days as well.

Last week, as I was homeschooling two of my grandboys, they got restless. Can you imagine? A 13 and an 8-year-old getting restless? When this happens, I generally give them a break to work off some of their energy. If the weather is nice enough, they go outside and find adventures in the woods or on the trampoline. On this particular day they got stuck somehow in the middle of my kitchen. They decided the countertop was a great place to have their arm wrestling competition. Just a few minutes in, I heard a CRASH – what sounded like the shattering of a very large glass. The eight-year-old began jumping up and down yelling, “Eben did it!” and the 13-year-old began saying over and over very soberly, “I’m so sorry, Grandmommy! I think I broke your cookie holder thingy!” (It was actually a glass cake stand with cover that had belonged to my mom). As I walked into the kitchen my Eben was grabbing the broom and trying to clean it all up, all the while repeating how sorry he was. I looked at him and smiled as I said, “Buddy, it’s ok. It’s just a thing!” “You are not just a thing!” He looked up with eyes wide and smiled sheepishly back at me while we cleaned the mess up together. Now, we did discuss a better place for arm wrestling and why it is wise to think about what you are doing inside – including throwing balls, chasing each other, using couches as trampolines, and all of the other rambunctios things they love to do. But do you know what ran through my mind immediatly when I heard the crash? “Is this going to matter in eternity!?” The answer is NO! BUT – my children, my grandchildren are so valuable – what they know and believe about my God DOES matter in eternity. They know that I trust Him. They know that I’ve given my life to Him. They need to know that HE makes me different from someone who would yell and scream at them for messing up or breaking their “things”! They need to know that they are more valuable than any of my belongings – even if they were handed down generation to generation.

Having raised 9 children I could write an entire book on this subject and share with you many times that I remembered my motto and responded in a way that lived it out as well as those times when I faltered and didn’t remember my motto before reacting in a manner that seemed to say, “My stuff matters more than you do!” But, I’ll spare you all of the details today. Some of those stories will surely come out in future writings. Today I want to encourage you to think about this in your own life.

How many small frustrations do we let control our ‘mood’? Traffic, an impolite customer in line with us at a store, a childish mistake, milk spilt on our freshly mopped floor, permanent marker drawings on the walls, a rip in the upholstry because a little boy was poking it with a pen, a broken glass because a child just couldn’t hold onto it, dirt on the freshly swept floor because someone didn’t remove his boots, a trampled rose bush because a little girl wrecked her bike in the flower garden, a sink full of dishes because someone got hungry in the night, a wet set of sheets because someone had an accident in the night, and yes; vomit on the floor because someone didn’t make it to the bucket or bathroom. I’m pretty sure you can invision some of these things happening in your home and how frustrating they may be in the moment. But if we can stop and think very simply, “Is this going to matter in eternity?” we can control our reactions and they can be beautiful responses that communicate our love for our people.