It started out as a joke. “What are you doing today?” “Living to serve.” I don’t even think I’m the one that came up with that. But, it was fitting. We all get busy. When we have kids, we focus our world around theirs. You go to work. You come home. You take the kids to this practice, that game, or their friends’ houses. We take them shopping. We help clean their rooms. Multiply that by three, and this mama has no life.
I use to think I can’t wait until the kids get a little older so they are more self-sufficient. Boy was I wrong. The older they have gotten, the more they want to do. The more activities they want to get involved in. The more sports they want to try.
Someone once said to me that they weren’t going to let their kids do too many things, because they were still going to have a life. It made me laugh. When your first grader brings you the basketball signup paper and has written “yes” on it because he wants to play, good luck saying no. The fact of the matter is, you will love watching them play. You will be beyond excited for their first basket, their first hit, or their first goal. Yes, it takes every Saturday morning and sometimes one night a week, but those are memories you are making.
So living to serve isn’t a bad thing. I would give every ounce of my being for my kids and my family. That is my life. We all live to serve.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “I have to take my kid to school,” “I have to do this,” or “I have to do that.” I choose to think of it as “I get to take my kid to practice,” “I get to go see their game on Friday night.” It is all about perspective. It is about cherishing each moment in front of you. It is about seeing the little miracles in front of you every day. It is about making sure your child feels loved and supported. Maybe you didn’t get to go eat dinner or go to the movies with your friends, but you got to see your kid hit a triple and his team win the championship. We only have our kids with us for a short time. Then they grow up and hopefully, we have taught them how to serve, how to love, and how to live.
