I want to remember today.  I want to pluck this ordinary morning memory of trying to rouse sleepy kids, of packing lunches and searching for missing shoes and belts, and breakfasts grabbed on the go and just put it away for later.  I want to remember the promised prayers for what their day held, for the anxieties that worry their hearts. I want to remember the way they looked on their way to the bus with their backpacks and lunchboxes and sports bags because this is what makes up life.  Day after day, like building blocks, moment after moment of the ordinary that creates a life. That’s what I want to remember. I want to be able to tuck these ordinary moments away in my pocket to be pulled out on a day when the everyday doesn’t look like this anymore.  I want this for me…

I have recently found myself struggling to remember the days when these big kids were babies, trying to remember how we filled our then seemingly endless hours. How many times we would laugh at something they said or did and say, “We should write that down” but never did and the moment passed leaving us with vague recollections of everyday moments.

How many prayers have we seen answered, the big and the small? How many times has God shown up, in the chaos, in the crisis, in the mundane, in the everyday? It’s not the numbers that are important, it’s just remembering the reality of the realness in it on the days when we feel alone and find it so hard to believe, for us, for our children, for our families.

As I see how fast my babies have grown my heart becomes full and overwhelmed and I want them to know their stories from their mother’s heart.  But more than that, I want them to know the prayers I have prayed.  I want them to see and remember, on the days when jaded adult views cloud their vision, that God has proven himself over and over to them as a very real and loving Father. I want this for my kids…

And this suddenly got real for me, real like a sucker punch to the gut, as I read these words from Elisa Pulliam, “Although I have journals scribbled full with pleas and petitions to the Lord, there aren’t enough of those pages filled up with prayers for my children. I think I’ve pushed praying for my children aside because their needs feel so easily met by me at the moment.  In light of other circumstances we’ve faced, like family tensions, life-changing decisions, and health crises too many to count, my children are doing just fine.  Fine is fine.  But for how long?  Their lives will only get more “un-fine” as they grow up which is why they need their momma praying for them on purpose…now.”

“So, as I turn to face the next decade of being a mother, I want to invest my time in bringing more than passing pleas to the Lord  I want to pause long enough to reflect on their needs and pray for them the way I’d want to be prayed for by others.  I want to give to the Lord what I see in their personalities that need His touch.  I want to talk to God about the struggles they face and the fears they feel.  I want to hand over to their Maker my concerns about their relationships. I want to yield to the Lord His plans for their lives and get out of the way of the story He is writing.”

Today, I begin.  I begin praying with a purpose and recording their stories. Today, I am going to stop beating myself up for not starting earlier and while I don’t know exactly what the end product is going to look like I am not going to get caught up in that. I am just going to look to right now, to the things that I am thankful for, prayerful over, or laugh about and I am going to share my heart with them for a day when they will need to remember. And I am going to do this, one step at a time.

Maybe you will be compelled to join me, for a child, for a friend, or maybe you need to begin to see more of God in your everyday just for you.  Maybe you need to become more purposeful in prayer and in building your relationship with God.  Let’s do this together! Make today your day.