The Constant Tides of Change

Does parenting ever feel monotonous to you? Of course it does!

Another diaper change. Another meal cooked. More pushes on the swing. Cleaning up yet another glass of spilled milk (don't cry over it). Getting them out the door for another day of school. Telling them for the 1254th time to say "please."

It feels like these routines will never end, doesn't it?

I was thinking about this earlier this summer when our family was at the beach. I was watching the waves come in and out. Over and over. At first, it looked like the same waves repeatedly washing up on the shore. And they looked no different than the waves I saw two years ago on the same beach, or any of the waves from any beach that I've ever been to.

But then I noticed something. The waves aren't the same. No two waves that crashed ashore were the same that morning. And no wave was exactly like any wave in the history of wave-kind.

The interesting thing about the waves and the tides is that they change the beach, and they are also changed by the beach. The change goes both ways, and nothing is ever the same again. The sandbar that I saw two years ago is still there, but is different in shape and size. It was changed a little bit at a time by the collective force of many similar, but unique, waves.

Likewise, when you do something for your kids one more time, or have to remind and teach of them something yet again, remember that no two moments are alike. Each time you lead them, you are changing them. And each time they change, you are changed as well.

Every moment matters. Every action or word changes them for a lifetime, even if ever so slightly.

As surely as the tides roll in and out, our kids are being changed before our eyes. And before you know it, this season that you're in will "wave" good-bye.