I have been thinking a lot about the past few years. There is a popular saying that hind sight is always 20/20. For a Christian I think hind sight answers a lot of why questions we may have in our hearts at the time we are going through a trial. I remember when my oldest who is now 8 was an infant I was always busy. Busy with the cleaning or writing articles for my husbands business or writing letters to clients. I spent time with my son but not that much quality just focus on him time. I regret that now because he is growing up so fast that I wished that I had slowed down then. Thankfully, after the birth of my 4th sons my body crashed. I was exhausted all of the time and in pain most of the time. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I have probably had it for a long time but doctors that I went to couldn't figure it out. With each child the symptoms got worse. My last child was a wonderful blessing but did me in. Looking back now I am so thankful because now I am not hyper any more about have a perfectly clean house and being consumed with a to do list. God taught me an amazing lesson the past 2 years.
There have been days I have walked with a cane because the pain in my hips and knees were unbearable and during those days I sit a lot and enjoyed talking to my sons or watch a video with them. Today as we were doing school work I was looking at them and enjoying them and I just gave God so much thanks that He slowed me down so I saw what was important and not what I thought was important. I am not saying having a clean house is not important because it is for health reasons but I am saying that I realized that my children are more important. My time with them is short and before I know it they will be 18 and in college. Once they are grown and on there own I will have plenty of time to have a spotless house and pursue hobbies and spend time with friends and be involved with ministries outside of the home. I want to have plenty of wonderful memories of my children as they are growing up so on those days that I will miss them because they have their own families I can remember and feel close to them.
That is not the only reason that I am glad God slowed me down. In slowing me down I began to invest my time in them. I began to enjoying teaching and training them. I am not just talking about their education for school, but in life and most importantly about the Lord Jesus. I want them to view the world around them not from the worlds point of view but from God's point of view. My desire is that their focus will not be on themselves and how to use people to get to their goal, but that their focus would be on Christ and how they can serve Him by serving others. In Bible class, they have been learning that what the Father sees in secret He will reward. In serving the Lord, I have been trying to teach them not to serve the Lord for praise and recognition of men because if they do it wasn't really serving the Lord but more themselves and they would have their reward, but instead to serve the Lord without expecting a "well done or I loved what you said or you are an amazing Christian" and do things unto the Lord with that as the motive of the heart and the actions show it. I think teaching my sons about Christ is the thing I am the most thankful for when God slowed me down. I get to teach them when we go for a walk and admire God's creation or just in everyday situations. Sometimes a health situation is given so you can see what is really important. I am thankful that God loves me so much to do that for me while my boys are young. It is not to say that everything is perfect or that we have a perfect family because there is no such thing but we all Christians are just sinners saved by grace and are in a work in progress. The Potter is not done with me yet nor with the rest of my family and I am thankful for that.
