Stages of Your Child

What I Was Thinking . . . was that if life ends when a heart STOPS beating, then when does life begin? Wouldn’t it make sense that it begins when the heart STARTS beating? I just looked it up on the Internet and a baby's heart starts beating at approximately 22 days after conception. I think that settles the debate of the life of an unborn child. What a miracle from God!

This is an old picture of my children and it just seems like a few years ago, but they are 24, 21 & 19 years of age now. Where has the time gone? Did I enjoy every stage of my childrens lives? I can look back and honestly say, "Yes, I enjoyed every stage."

I want to encourage you to enjoy every stage of your child‘s life; don’t miss a thing and don’t try to rush any stage. Don’t keep saying I can’t wait until he starts walking, I can’t wait for him to start talking, I can’t wait until he goes to school, I can’t wait for him to get a job, I can’t wait until he graduates from high school, I can’t wait until he moves out on his own. You can wait. If you keep anticipating the next stage of his life, you can never fully enjoy the stage of life he is in right now. Enjoy and saver every moment, because it goes by extremely fast.

My husband and I have prayed for our children ever since they were in their crib. I can still remember kneeling down at my children’s crib and praying for them, that God would protect them and that one day they would serve Him with their lives. We prayed for their future spouse when they were just in the crib as well. We prayed that God would guide them and guide the parents of their future spouse. That they would be trained and prepared just for our child. My husband and I have just prayed and prayed and prayed for our children and still do ~ every single day. Let me just remind you that it is very important to pray for your child’s future spouse.

Going back to stages of our children’s lives, every stage is so different, but there is something special about each one of them. When you first bring your baby home they don’t do one thing, but cry, poop and eat no fun at all, not playing or even acknowledging that you are around it’s almost disheartening. But take this time to hold your baby and examine every inch of him and just really bond with him in a special way. Pretty soon he’ll start playing with you, cooing, talking. Soon you will be teaching him all sorts of things and just filling his mind with knowledge. He’ll start crawling then walking and pretty soon he will be off to Kindergarten and you will wonder what in the world happen to my little baby. Soon after that you will be taking him to soccer practice and t-ball games cheering him on and knowing he is the best player on the field. Then all of a sudden you will realize that he has just become a teenager and you try your best to remember what that was like and then try to figure out what planet he is on or what he was thinking when he did something so stupid you can’t believe your son did what he did.

And then you are going to watch him walk the aisle and receive his high school diploma and you will be so proud of him and he will thank you for giving him a good home. Then he will go off to college and he will take with him everything that you have taught him and he will be a man. Then he will meet someone so special, that one person that you started praying for when he was in the crib and continued to pray for during his life. You never knew them personally, but you knew God was preparing someone for your child, someone special and they would fall in love with and take all the values that you instilled in them and bring them in this relationship and begin their family with everything that you taught them. Value and enjoy every stage of your child's life. That's what I was thinking.