Homemakers with Hope

You are probably wondering who is that adorable girl in this picture. Well, let me tell you. It is my younger sister Jill and on Friday we celebrated her wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and believe me she was a stunning bride. :)

As I stood on the stage on Friday, I kept watching my parents. Thinking about how this is their third and final daughter to be married off. I was thinking about what they must be feeling. Because my kids are so little now, I honestly can't even begin to picture what that day would be like as a parent. A true mix of emotions I am sure. Happiness that your child is an adult who has fallen in love but also a little sad that you are no longer really parenting them in the same way. Your role as a mom still remains but looks very different.

That got me thinking about life right now and how my role is technically changing so frequently. Just this week my oldest daughter has decided that she no longer wants my help climbing stairs. She has decided she wants to do it and I just stand there to watch. My youngest daughter has started crawling and she loves to be on the ground exploring. She isn't as content to snuggle in my lap anymore and again I am left to watch. I celebrate these little steps of independence with pride but still have a little sense of sadness in how quickly children grow. This feeling is probably a similar to how my parents felt on Friday night.

As a way to document my child's accomplishments and my feelings as a mom, I journal. I have a separate journal for both of my girls and I write in them whenever I feel like I want to be sure to remember something or when I feel like someday they will relate to what I am feeling. Sometimes it is once during the month and other times it has been more frequent. Sometimes I just let them know how much they are loved and other times I use it as a way to write out a prayer for them. When they are older I will continue to write in these journals. They will be able to look at them whenever they would like and when they leave my home, they can take it with them. Someday, if my girls have children, I hope this will be a way to jog my memory on how it feels to be a young mom and also allow my girls to see that I went through all of the same emotions parenting them. More than anything I hope that it will be another tool used to introduce them to a relationship with Jesus and used to show them how incredibly loved they have been from the very start.