When the Small Moments Matter Most

Piggybacking off my last post A Time For Everything about what I’m gleaning from the book of Ecclesiastes as it relates to the season I am in with a graduating senior is the realization that the little moments we give no thought to in the midst of them actually mean the most.  What I can’t get enough of now is all of us being home. Being in the living room together watching The Voice, standing in the kitchen laughing hysterically at something one of us said and even stopping what I’m doing to hear what my daughter has to say or one of my sons wants to show me. These seemingly meaningless moments are actually life at its best. If only it didn’t take sending a child to college to get this.

Too often from the time our kids are little we fool ourselves into thinking that doing more equals more meaning. So we chase after what everyone else is doing in fear of missing out or hoping to gain something greater.  We overschedule ourselves and our kids rushing in all different directions with only a rare night at home.  But in living such hurried lives we spread ourselves so thin that when we are home, we are ready to check out. And then we get up and start all over again.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.  The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow,there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing… Ecclesiastes 1:2-8

At some point in all the busyness I think we identify with Ecclesiastes and wonder what are we striving for. Why are we spinning our wheels? What is it we are looking to gain?

Ironically what we really want has been right in front of us all along.  Isn’t the reason we love summer or any other break from routine because in slowing down without a schedule we find time for what is most fulfilling?  We long for and love time to sit around, to talk, to do things with and spend time with people we love and to make memories (big and small) with them. Aren’t these the moments we crave and the moments we miss when are kids are gone?

If this is true, why can’t or don’t we re-prioritize our time, all the time? Why can’t we say no? Can we not take back the moments that matter most?

To some degree we can control the busyness. Not fully, I know too well, but we do make time for what we want to make time for and what we make time for speaks volumes to our kids.  Eighteen years goes fast and though there is no way to slow the hand of time, slowing down for life’s little moments is where meaning and joy are found and impact is made. These are the moments I want more of and by God’s grace live fully in because really it’s where real living is!