I admit it. Sometimes I wish you were mine for keeps. I wish I could freeze time and keep you just the way you are, sealed in the magic and wonder that is childhood. Warm under my roof, safe in my arms.
But I can’t. Because you don’t belong to me. Not really. You belong to the world, and to Jesus, and to yourselves. I am merely your launching pad, the place you call home before you are able to create one of your own.
You were made for much greater things than these four walls. But for right now, for this brief and perfect sliver of time, I can fold you under my wing and keep you. Because while you are not mine for the keeping, I have been entrusted to be your first love and your first protection and your first teacher. Your soul does not belong to me, but for a brief moment, your heart is all mine. Because for this brief moment, you and I belong to each other.
I watch the twinkle in your eye and I hear the joy in your laughter and I am overcome with gratitude and awe, awe that I was the one chosen as your protector. Awe that I am the one blessed with these precious moments that only we share. One day the world will know your smile and many will feel your heart. Your songs will be for other ears and your drawings for other eyes. But only I will know the magic of your earliest years. That will be the secret our hearts share for an eternity.
And so daily I thank God for the gift of being the one to witness all that you are and all that you are in the process of becoming during this very season of becoming. For being the hand you trust yours to be in. For being the heart yours trusts with its love. For being the ears to hear your earliest songs.
Because babies don’t give themselves conditionally. They don’t hold back and wait to trust. They give blindly and openly and fully. And I will spend every day of my life trying to be worthy of the honor of that trust.
I don’t know who you will become, where you will go, or to what you will dedicate your life. But for this one magical moment, you and I belong to each other. And for now, I just want to rest in the glow of that honor. Because precious though it is, it is as fleeting as the seasons.