“The days are long, but the years are short” is a quote that seems to sum up parenthood in so many ways.

As I sit watching my daughter rock her baby doll and reach for the baby’s bottle, she looks up with excitement to tell me, “Baby Sophie crying. Awwh Baby, it’s okay. I feed you. You eat dinner,” I can feel a lump in my throat growing. It seems like just yesterday that my husband and I brought her home from the hospital. The time flies by exponentially and I know each parent can understand these thoughts. I love this little gift that God has given us and I want to live purposefully and cherish my time with her.

I currently work from home and my husband just started his nursing career, so we are in a very busy season. There are many times when I want to rush bedtime, do all the clean up on my own, or miss a beautiful moment with my daughter because I’m distracted by all the other things vying for my attention. It is so easy to want to just “get through the day”, rather than to cherish each little moment.

We live in a society that is primarily individualistic and praises productivity and meeting milestones like finishing college, getting that promotion, and purchasing a house.  Marriage, families, and children are just an extra on that you can cram in around the edges (if you want). And with the invention of social media, I have seen so many memes complaining about marriage and motherhood and many people on the internet grumbling at best and completely hostile against marriage and children at worst. There are so many voices around us telling us what our lives should look like and so many things competing against our families for our attention.

But that’s not how God is.

Families are central to his plan for humanity. The very first thing that the Lord says in Genesis to Adam and Eve is to be fruitful and multiply.  Throughout the Bible God uses families to unfold His plan for humanity. Jesus had the ability to just show up here on earth as fully grown man. But He did not. Instead He grew in the womb like every other human and was born and raised into the family line that God had chosen. From Abraham and Sarah to Ruth and Boaz to Jesus’ own family, families play an integral role in his design.

Not long ago, my attention was drawn to the verse “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” – Deuteronomy 6:5-8 We are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, but it doesn’t end there…we are to keep these words CONSTANTLY on our hearts and to DILIGENTLY teach them to our children…when we sit down, when we walk, when we go to bed and when we get up. ALL throughout the day, in the seemingly unimportant moments…we are to be exemplifying and teaching our children what it means to love the Lord. Each little moment matters to God and it matters for our families.

Trust me, I know this may sound a little daunting.

I am not talking about perfection, but little by little giving more of ourselves and our days to the Lord, taking back our idea of what motherhood is according to society, and grounding ourselves in biblical truth; allowing us to learn how to make each little moment count. I am on this journey myself and have a long way to go-but I invite you to take a peek into our family, see what the Lord is teaching us, and hopefully receive some helpful ideas and encouragement along the way.