Friend Friday with Wasteland to Graceland

Everytime I stop by Amy’s corner of the world, I am blessed and I connect with exactly what she is saying. I’m so thankful having her share in my corner! I pray that you are blessed as you read her post here. Please be sure to swing by her corner and say howdy!

Our Children…Gifts to the World

She hands me the gift.  A piece of paper folded over and over and over.  Inside, swirls of pink and purple.  One little and one big.  She says, “It’s a picture of when you used to nurse me.”  This is my 3 year old’s gift to me.  At least once a day I receive this…swirling pictures of us together.  She gives me gifts and sometimes they overwhelm me…there are so many.
What a precious thing…my little girl giving ME gifts.

THE GIFT BEING THE GIFTER.  As if she wasn’t enough.

I want to be overwhelmed by this gift of a child.

Sometimes in the day to day shuffle of things I forget about the waiting for this gift.  If you knew the story you’d wonder how I could forget.  But I do…because time and the day-to-day stuff has a way of helping me forget.

Twice I tried to have a second child and twice I lost the pregnancy.  The third time was it.  It had to be because I didn’t think I’d be able to live through another loss.  So this was it.  The last chance.  The last straw.  I remember nursing my little girl for the first time at home in the old hand-me-down glider.  Tears streaming and me thanking God for the second child gift…over and over and over again.

I am thinking about this again…because I recently talked to a friend on the phone.  The friend who lost her young dear daughter one year ago.  The girl who was the picture of sweetness in the town.  The girl everybody loved.  My friend told me that she wanted so badly to hold onto her because she was so busy in her last years of high school.  She wanted more of her.   She was growing so fast and seemed to just be figuring out who she was…and the world around her was figuring it out too.
You see…my friend loved her daughter well and her daughter loved the world around her well.  Everyone was impacted by her sweetness.

As we were talking I was reminded of something I heard once.  That our children are not just our gifts but gifts to the world.  Our greatest gift to the world is our children.  While my friend was giving her to the world and missing her during those busy times, she was allowing the world to experience the gift just a bit before her leaving us.  And that will always be a gift to her…that she did indeed give the world a gift.

Could you…would you…stop right now and cry out to God with me to praise Him for the child gifts he has given us?  If you know someone who has lost one of their gifts, cry out for them for healing of their devastated hearts.  Thank him for the gifts to the world who are now in His care.  If yours are still in your care, cry out to Him about how precious they are…how little time there is…how fleeting the moments are.  Cry out for wisdom in how to train these gifts up well with the little time we have in order to then give them out to the world.

Is there anything or anyone else in this world that causes us to cry out to and cling to God more than our kids?  That we have an impact on these little people and that impacts our world is such an amazing privilege.  Our loving them well, teaches them how to love well and the world is better off for it.

My friend speaks from wisdom:  she’s loved and had to let go…way too early.  She says, “Don’t stop hugging and kissing your kids.”

I’m thinking that might just be what I need.  What they need.

And I’m thinking in these days of trying to teach manners and math that…perhaps…as I prepare to give my children to the world…hugging and kissing might be just the thing the world needs.  Kids whose parents never stopped hugging and kissing them. 

I wonder though…even…at my ability to do that well.  Each moment, the way I love, impacting the child and ultimately the world.  I’m dependent on Him to give constantly.  To give when I don’t feel like giving.  To get excited about another swirly picture.  To show enthusiasm when unfolding another picture over and over and over.  Then I remember His grace.  Another one of His gifts…grace to do what we might not be able to do in and of ourselves.  He never tires of giving it to us when we need it – over and over and over.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).

I am a follower of Christ, wife and mother who needs to be reminded of what is true.  I write in order to see clearly that Christ is renewing me, my life story, the people around me and even the world.  He is transforming it all from a wasteland to graceland.  You can join me in seeing His hand at work in an ordinary life at  wastelandtograceland.com