Have you ever noticed the older you get, the faster time seems to fly?  Today my baby girl turns sixteen.  I’m not real sure how that happened since I’m only twenty-nine years old, right? She gets her license tomorrow, then I’ll blink and she’ll be in a cap and gown preparing to head off to college.  The time is going too quickly.
I often find myself relating to Mary, the mother of Jesus, when it says in Luke 2:19, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  I ask the Lord to seer the memories in my heart and mind so I will have them to hold onto once my children have moved away and started families of their own.  While they’re always a part of my life, I only have a season to pour deeply into them, helping to shape them into the man and woman they will become.
When I was pregnant with my first born, I discovered a poem in my doctor’s office.  As I read it, it took root and shaped the way I look at my role as mother. I’d like to share it with you.
“God gave this child to you,
To guide, to love, walk life thru,
A little child so full of charms,
To fill a pair of loving arms.
God picked you out because He knew
How safe His child would be with you.”  [Author Unknown]
As I read the poem that day, I realized my child wasn’t really mine.  My baby belonged to God and He chose to allow me to pour into him or her for a season. It was my responsibility to “train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” [Proverbs 22:6]. 
Our home is our first mission field [Acts 1:8].  Our job is to make disciples, baptize them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” and teach them to obey all Jesus commanded [Matthew 28:19].  If you don’t have children of your own, look around you.  Who has the Lord brought into your path on a regular basis, where you have the opportunity to shape and mold by your words and your deeds?  Whether you’re a birth parent, an adoptive parent, or a spiritual parent, God has placed people in your path to be an example of the Father’s love.  Don’t take the assignment lightly.  You never know if the person under your roof or under your care will be the next President, the next Billy Graham, next Mother Theresa, or the next … you fill in the blank.  Your influence, the message you not only talk but also walk day in and day out will help shape who they become.
The clock is ticking.  Time is short.  Use it wisely. What will you do today to pour into those God has trusted to you?