Moments for Mom — September 2010

In five years, I will help my daughter pick things out at Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond, and we will pack up her room and pack up her car (assuming she has a car in five years), and we will drive her to college. Five years.

Five years ago, she was 9. Five years ago, I was 35. Five years ago, she was going into third grade. Five years ago, I was working part-time, up to my ears in church work. Five years ago seems about five minutes ago. Five years.

Five years will go like that {snap}.

So all I have is right now. I have the moments when she asks me for braids when it’s an hour after I thought she went to bed, and we end up giggling or praying. I have the moments when we’re in the car alone and I ask, ‘how are you doing, baby?’ and she actually answers me without an eye-roll. I have the moments when she stands next to me in front of a mirror, about one inch from passing me by in the height department, and I realize that I’m looking at myself at thirteen and it terrifies me. I have the moments when I look at her, really look at her, and want to tell her everything that I’ve ever done wrong in the false hope that she can narrowly escape all future mistakes simply by listening to all of mine.

I don’t have any more yesterdays. The past almost-fourteen years are behind us.

And I don’t have five more years. Not really. We are given one simple, full, beautiful, hard day at a time to live through.

So I’ve got today. I’ve got little moments. And there’s so much I want to soak in, to pour out, to pray for. One little moment at a time.

Elisabeth lives with her family in Illinois. She is the author of the devotionals, In Search of Calm: Renewal for a Mother’s Heart (Xulon), Calm in My Chaos: Encouragement for a Mom’s Weary Soul (Kregel), and is excited to announce the release of He Is Just That Into You: Stories of a Faithful God who Pursues, Engages, and Has No Fear of Commitment (WinePress). After ten years of leading Women’s Ministry and four years on staff at Christ Community Church – Blackberry Creek Campus over Adult Ministry and Community & International Impact, she is now devoting her time to speaking and writing. Her passion is to encourage women and the Church, and applying her gifts to eradicating local and global AIDS. You can follow her on Twitter at ekcorcoran.