“Mom can we please go somewhere today?”
Summer is here and my boys are bored. I can’t blame them, they’ve been stuck here since March… and they are just now feeling it.
Truth be told, I often have ideas of things we could safely do, but I just as often talk myself out of them. Like for weeks I’ve been wanting to grab their bikes and drive to a nearby trail. Our neighborhood is too busy to keep 3 kids on bikes safe so we don’t often take the bikes when we walk. Plus as they get faster, I must be getting slower because I can’t easily keep up with them anymore!⠀
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Every time I had the thought of putting their bikes in the car, I talked myself out of it. It felt too onerous – especially in this new world of masks and social distancing. So I didn’t do it… until yesterday when the sweet but persistent 5 year old was in my face begging me for an adventure. “Please mom?”
“Ok, maybe later we will put the bikes in the car and go to a trail,” I suggested as I got breakfast ready. His face lit up and he ran off to tell his twin the news. 15 minutes later, they were back fully dressed with shoes on. “Ok mom, we’re ready. Can we go now?” I reminded them that there were more steps til we could leave – like moving their bikes to the garage. “But we already did that,” they said. “Bikes and helmets ready to go. And if you give us the keys, we can put them in the car for you.”
Woah. I had delayed adventures like this because it all seemed too onerous…. onerous because I was still assuming all the details fell on me. But somewhere, when I wasn’t looking, my youngest boys grew a foot in height and in maturity. As they stood in the kitchen so proud of how they helped, it reminded me that I’m not doing this alone.
In fact, I am never doing any of this alone and neither are you. So when things seem onerous today – the little and the big things – know I’m praying for you. My prayer today is that we feel God’s presence – lifting a portion of the weight off our shoulders so that we may do the same for another.
You know the first thing someone said to me on the trail? “Three boys, I have three. Not easy. Good job, mom.”
See… not alone.
