Fleeting time.....

My middle son Phinehas threw up tonight.
I hate it when my kids throw up. I'm sure every mom hates it.
He's running a low fever and he's just not himself. We got him bathed, in a T-shirt and into bed tonight and I laid down beside him and scratched his back. I was struck, once again, how our time here in earth is fleeting. And how, for this moment, this evening, I was designed to be Phin's mom and take care of him.
My boys were given to me. Blessings: all three of them. And, when I am frustrated with one of them for one reason or another, I remember that I was designed partly to be their mother. There are so many other people out there in this world. But it's me. I'm the one who is Mommy to Isaiah, Phin and Simeon. I am struck by that so often.
And, about just as often, I remember that my time with them is indefinite.
We are taught, as Christians, that our time here on earth is fleeting. We are told and we read that our time here on earth is but a moment in eternity.

When I was pregnant with my first son Isaiah, we found out that one of Nate's sister's closest friends, and a friend of Nate's, had passed away. She was young. She was a young mother. She left behind a young son, about one or two years of age. I stood there at the funeral home, standing beside my husband, with my son still in me, looking at this young woman in a casket in front of me.
And I got it.
I've only got them for as long as He lets me. He chooses when I leave. It could be when I'm eighty. It could be later tonight.
He does what He does and He is always right.

So, tonight, I laid there in my son's bed, thinking about how tonight may look....those of us with kids realize that throwing up is usually never done just once.... and then I remembered that tonight, right now, I get to help him. It's my job. I'm the Mom.
What a responsibility.
But, really, truly, what a gift.
I get to have him tonight. And he gets to have me.
By the grace of God.


Kristin