A Prayer for Ordinary Days

Psalm 90, 12.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I can still picture the scene.

All five of my kids were in the living room.

My son was irritating one of my daughters.

My two middle daughters were saying, look, mom, for probably the 25th time as they tried to show me their cartwheels.

The dogs were barking and the television was blaring as we waited to find out who was going to be the next president.

To say it was chaotic would be the understatement of the century.

Right in the middle of all that noise, my youngest daughter walked over and handed me the prettiest little picture she had drawn.

It was a picture of the two of us holding hands.

We had big smiles on our faces, and we were wearing the cutest boots you've ever seen.

I taught her well.

Across the top of the page, she had written, Mommy, I love you.

That little drawing put everything into perspective for me.

See, she didn't care about the noise.

She wasn't bothered by the barking dogs or the blaring television.

She wasn't thinking about the mess or everything that still needed to get done.

In the middle of all of that chaos, what mattered to her was very simple.

She loved her mommy, and she wanted me to know it.

Isn't that what really matters? Our people, our family, the people God has placed in our lives to love? Back then, people were always telling me, enjoy these days.

They grow up so fast.

Let me tell you, standing in that noisy living room with five kids, barking dogs, and somebody always needing me, I remember thinking, no, they don't.

But they were right.

Somehow, in the blink of an eye, those five little kids grew up.

And now I understand something I couldn't fully understand then.