A Short Time

We began our week with this little guy in our backyard. The boys noticed him on Tuesday afternoon walking around unable to fly. Mommy wasn't too sure how to help him, so we waited for Daddy to come home. When he did, Daddy talked to the boys about him, made him a nest, and then they prayed together for his Mommy & Daddy to come down to help him learn how to fly.
About an hour later as we were eating dinner, we watched his Mommy & Daddy come down from the large tree in the middle of our backyard. They fed him, loved on him, and tried to get him to fly. The boys sat with their dinner staring out the back window for about an hour. It was so beautiful to watch these parents do all that they could to help their little baby. It was as they did that Matt explained to the children how our new little friend was in God's hands. God could decide for him to heal or he could decide another fate for him.
That day had been particularly hard for me. Do you ever have those days? You are trying so hard but everything is going wrong and every time you leave the room a new fight breaks out, a spill happens, or someone runs into the dining room table unexpectedly. But it was in that moment of watching this sweet little family that I was reminded...we feed them, teach them, rock them to sleep, play with them...we pour our hearts out knowing that ultimately they aren't our children, they are His, and they are in His hands. They are ours for such a short time and it is up to the Father how long that will be.

The next couple days did not seem to get better. One began like this...
It went on to include a 2 year old stripping down in the doctor's office and peeing inside the toy box as the doctor walked in, a 5 year old repeating "excuse me" over and over as I tried to talk to the doctor, 2 shots for each of the little boys, crankiness due to shots, a dinner taking way too long to cook because I forgot to thaw the meat, a husband working late nights.

But I have learned that all the chaos isn't that important especially when the days also include this...
This is Jack's regular quiet time routine. He puts his tent across the chair, lays down a blanket as a saddle, puts his toy horse head at the front of it, adds a holster & rifle, and dresses in full cowboy gear.

And this....
THEY ARE ONLY OURS FOR A SHORT TIME.