Times: They are a Changing

I know that probably every parent feels this way, and it does not matter how much you hear it from other parents, but MAN time goes by fast with your kids! Sometimes, it feels like eternity, but then, that little baby boy you had in a little delivery room in North Carolina all of the sudden becomes a young man. He is getting ready to turn 17, which hits me the realization, we only have a little over a year left with him. As I previously posted, he has gotten his license, because God loves him, he is about to get his first vehicle (which could NOT be a more perfect truck for him), and yesterday.....yesterday waxed me VERY nostalgic. Yesterday I sat in the Army recruiters office with my little baby boy for an hour and a half and watched him sign papers to get the ball rolling for him to join up when he turns 17 (in two-ish weeks). The flood of confusion washing over me was overwhelming. Isn't this my firstborn son, who when he was six months old, we suddenly found ourselves just him and me against the world? Isn't this the little boy who used to sit in my front yard and talk out loud to Jesus? Isn't this the little boy who could weave the most fantastic tales about his day (when he was younger)...so fantastic, you almost believed him? Isn't this the little boy, who was the first real person to steal a bit of my heart away from me, and it will forever be his? YES....I have to say to my self, yes, this is still him, but now he is my young man, who runs chainsaws, clears brush, plants tree's, would help anybody with any manual labor job needed, he drives, he works, and very soon....he will be a soldier. That is when this eternity of parenthood slaps you in the face and says....NNNOOOO....you do not have them forever, they WILL grow up and make lives for themselves, and all you can do is sit back in love and watch what God has done in his life, and hope that he relies on God, for the rest of his life.
Have a wonderfully blessed day.