The woman sitting beside me was probably wondering the same thing as the circus started and she struggled to keep her daughter interested in what was going on inside the ring. I wanted to help but, because my girls were older, I had nothing in my purse to entertain the little girl.

Eventually, an intermission gave everyone a chance to stretch their legs and I took Katie and Hollie outside to get some air. A short while later, the mom followed with her daughter in tow. She looked defeated as I watched her walk in my direction.

“Are you leaving?” I asked.

“She’s ready to go.”

“Are you sure she won’t sit through the rest of the performance?” I pressed, hoping she would change her mind.

“I thought this would be good for her, that she would enjoy it,” the woman confessed as her voice trailed off in despair.

I wanted to give the woman something to hold onto. An encouraging word to get her through, not just the next few hours, but the next few years. Instead, I came up with four.

“It will get better,” I assured her.

“Will it?” the woman asked, her voice filled with hope.

“My daughters are six and eight and they play together so well now that I sometimes have hours to work on projects.”

The young mom seemed encouraged as she said goodbye and walked across the parking lot to the apartment just past it. I, on the other hand, was not. With over 490,000 words in the English language,[ii] the ones I chose to speak seemed so small. Like a tiny speck of light at the end of a long and extremely dark tunnel.

To get to the light, the mom would have to endure another pregnancy and nurse a second baby through middle-of-the-night feedings and countless illnesses. Only then, when her daughter had a sibling to play with, would she find the free time I had spoken of.  

I’ve been told that to touch someone's life, even for a second, is worth it.[iii] Why then, did I find myself wishing I had done more? For weeks after the circus left town, I drove by the parking lot, regretting that I had not asked which apartment building she lived in. A year passed and, still, I never forgot.

The concern I felt for this mother reminded me of another parenting quote from Lysa Terkeurst's book:  “In some ways, it seems the umbilical cord never really gets cut ...The hard part about being a mom is you’ll forever have pieces of your heart walking around outside your body.”[iv]

Experience has taught me that the same is true about serving. When I think of all the people whose paths have crossed mine through what can only be explained as divinely-orchestrated circumstances, I find myself wondering how they are, and if I did enough—or anything—to help.

I add the word anything because, while watching home movies one night I saw footage of Hollie as a baby and immediately regretted what I had said to the mom at the circus: Why did I tell her that it would get better, when it already was?

Sometimes I think we spend so much time waiting for our children to grow up, that we forget to enjoy them while they are. Seeing how days that seemed to drag when I was living through them have now passed by at super-sonic speed makes me wonder where the years have gone, and why I didn't enjoy them more when they were here.

Lysa Terkeurst must have asked herself the same thing when she said: “How unaware we live, I can’t remember the day that marked the last diaper changed, the last bottle fixed … Yet there was a day that proclaimed, ‘This is the last time for this task that seems so mundane today but precious and priceless tomorrow.’”[v]

At the end of my parenting days, I don't want to look back and realize that I missed out on the moments that mattered most. That’s why this year, when the Zoppe Family Circus comes to town, I will gladly pay the price of admission to see the live performance and remember the life lesson learned when a young mom and her daughter taught me stop waiting for things to get better and realize ... they already are.

Katie & Hollie in 2002	Hollie & Katie in 2008

Happy Mother's Day!

“Turning our circumstances over to God will right our heart, change the way we look at the situation, and help us recognize glimpses of God in the midst of our broken efforts.”

Lysa TerKeurst, The Bathtub Is Overflowing but I Feel Drained, p. 158

“Remember that everything that happens to you is first filtered through God’s hand. Interruptions can become opportunities. What you might see as distractions God might see as divine appointments. Things may happen that seem so haphazard and distracting to our agenda, but with a fresh dose of perspective, they can turn into precious moments.”

Lysa TerKeurst, The Bathtub Is Overflowing but I Feel Drained, p. 159