(… continued from yesterday)

Although I’d forgotten to count my children, that eventually translated to a valuable parenting discovery: mothering is a marathon, not a sprint. Thankfully, my mistake didn’t disqualify me from the race.

The marathon principle is difficult to appropriate, since everyone around us seems to be sprinting. We’re all in a rush. Haven’t we stood in front of a microwave muttering, “C’mon… Hurry up!” I was raised watching parents heat leftover coffee in a sauce pan, but today 50 seconds is too long. Letters have picked up speed by morphing into email, which has condensed into Facebook, which has distilled into Twitter, symbols of life at zoom-speed.

So what’s a mother to do? She can’t run any faster or spread herself any thinner. She’s already meeting her husband’s needs, raising her children, serving in church, managing a home and going to work. Isn’t that enough?

Her question, born of frustration, can be answered with good news. She doesn’t have to get the motherhood project finished any time soon. What she says and does matters, but no single event is the end-all or be-all. Tomorrow will bring a new beginning, followed by another one after that. God’s mercies (and stores of endurance) are in fresh supply for moms, every single morning.

It’s comforting to know we don’t have to hurry up in our loving, serving or influencing of children. As in a marathon, we should pace ourselves for the long haul. Our finish line isn’t even in view. Actually, we can’t see it at all until we’re on our own death beds. We spend 8,760 hours raising a child to the age of 21, and though our hands-on care diminishes during those years, we’ll be mothers till the very end.

My own mom was still mothering her kids as she took her last breath, teaching us how to die without fear, and pointing us to “the bottom line,” her certainty about eternity. Minutes before she died, Mary was reading from a favorite Scripture passage, John 14. She paused at important words to see if Mom could fill in the blanks. By way of quiet whispers, she got them all. Although her body was lying in a bed, the rest of her was still running the mothering marathon.

It took me five children to learn (and be grateful for) the marathon truth, but in recent years I’ve made an additional discovery, that it’s pure delight to be the mom of adult children. As we fight against speed while raising kids through the growing-up years, we can take comfort in knowing the marathon continues, and the best is yet to come.

Granted, the job description changes radically after children leave home, but I had no idea that such satisfying friendships would be mine. Nate and I talked often about this phenomenon, marveling at the pleasure of being with our adult kids. And as he was approaching the parenting finish line before leaving this world, his children rushed to lavish love and care on their father, which he received with deep joy.

Nate isn’t marathon-ing next to me anymore, but I’m beginning to see there’s still more “best” to come as I mother my grands. Only 20 months into the grandmothering stretch of my marathon, I’ve already been amazed by the wonder of it all.

But better than all these mothering perks is the parenting promise the Lord has given directly to us ….

(… to be concluded tomorrow)

“Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.” (Job 32:7)

It was November of 1982. Wrestling five children into winter wear for a trip to the park district had exhausted me, and no one was even in the car yet. As I was readying the last, the first was pulling off his coat. “I’m hot,” he said.

This was my first outing with all five since baby Hans had been born a month earlier. “Help me, Lord,” I breathed while strapping one year old Klaus into his car seat. “Poor kid,” I thought. “Still a baby, but he already has a baby brother.”

Once at the park district, I busied myself filling out paperwork for four year old Linnea’s gymnastics class, proud of myself for remembering the checkbook. Suddenly I went cold. Where was the new baby?

“Where’s Hans?” I screeched to no one in particular. Nelson and Lars stopped rough-housing and began looking all over the floor of the lobby. “Is he still in the car?” I asked.

Leaving my checkbook on the counter, I ran for the door. The children followed. Finding Hans’ car seat empty, I shouted, “Get in! Everybody in! Hurry up!”

My tires squealed as we flew out of the parking lot toward home. How could I be so irresponsible? I was this child’s mother, for goodness sake! As we raced home, that verse from Isaiah popped into my mind: “Even if a woman forgets her nursing child, I will not forget you.”

“You’re right,” I thought. “I forgot… What kind of a mother am I?”

Leaving the car running in the driveway (more incompetence), I took the porch steps two at a time. Where had I last seen him? When had I last touched him?

Zipping his snowsuit… in our bedroom… on our bed… and there he was, still sound asleep in the center of the mattress, unaware of the crisis. The older children rushed in behind me, relieved to see the lost baby had been found, and their mother had calmed down.

Scanning the line-up for my one year old, in an instant I felt nauseous. “Where’s Klaus?” I asked. “Is he still in the car?”

“No,” said the six year old. “He never got in the car.”

“What?”

“You left him at the park district.”

“Back in the car!” I was screeching again. “Hurry! Hurry!” Soon we were squealing tires again. And sure enough, there was Klaus, sitting on the park district counter next to my checkbook, securely encircled by the arms of the office secretary. He hadn’t even missed us.

“I knew you’d be back,” she grinned.

“Oh God,” I said out loud. “Please make me count my children!”

Sadly, that’s just one of many such incidents in my mothering past, but raising young children is difficult. The days are micro-chopped into minute-long pieces, punctuated by one interruption after another. At any one of those junctures, sanity is uncertain.

Thankfully, no single event defines a mother or shapes a childhood. The day of my park district debacle I didn’t receive a brand on my forehead that said “Bad Mother.” But I did realize something very important that day….

(to be continued)

“Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I, the Lord, will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15)