When infants, our babies seem to be inexplicably ours.
We nourish them, protect them, house them...
And then suddenly, they are kids
and we realize, we remember,
what we were told, what we knew to be true,
before we held them
naked on our chest,
fresh on the scene,
but we maybe forgot
as we diapered and nursed them and soaked in their unhindered newborn struggles.
We remember
that they are not truly ours,
but His, and
that we hold them for a while,
but that He holds them for eternity.
We are raising them to leave the nest,
to stretch out wings
and test their flight worthiness,
and fly the coop
to someday raise their own brood, Lord willing.
We are not raising them
to keep them to ourselves,
but to send them out.
And then we'll hope that the time we spent
pouring into them rather than filling our own selfish cisterns
was time well spent, time enjoyed, time not just survived but time intentionally lived out
day by day, minute by minute.