Are the little years the lost years?

It occurred to us recently that we are at the end of the little years in our family. We have a 9, 6 and 4 year old and for what simultaneously felt like a lifetime and a blink of an eye, we were doing the little years stuff.

For years, life centred around night feeds, weaning, first steps, potty training, naptime, dummies and baby carrying.

But our smallest baby had the audacity to grow into a confident, kind, articulate and yes, some-what strong willed 4-year-old girl.

There is a grief that comes with that.

But there is also rejoicing.

Because at the end of the little years, things start to get a bit easier. More sleep, less fear about imminent death by choking, fewer tantrums.

And there’s the really fun stuff too – family bike rides, hearing deep questions from your little philosophers, belly laughs at silly jokes, cinema trips and boardgames.

So are the little years the lost years, where we lose:

• our concentration
• our sense of personal identity
• our pre-baby body
• our spiritual disciplines
• our sanity
• our sleep
• our tidy home
• our time for friendships
• our career progression
• our engagement with church
• our fondness for our spouse
• our freedom
• ourselves?

We’d love to encourage you that the little years are not the lost years. There is sacrifice in abundance. There is a high daily personal cost. There will be bucketfuls of tears (yours and there’s). But it is not a waste.

There is loss, you will lose far more than you realise when you first look at the two lines on the pregnancy test, or have your adoption match approved at panel – but the years are not lost.

The little years are not the years that we count down in order for life to resume or actually start.

They are real life. They are an honourable season. Everything that Jesus wishes to accomplish in you and through you can happen right in the days in which you are living through – sleep deprived, milk stained, limited, sinful and all.

Jesus uses every situation and especially the hard ones to draw us to his son and make us more like him.

And God uses having children as a major way of sanctifying us. It was his good idea to command humanity to “be fruitful and multiply” so we can be certain that he has good purposes for us in the process of becoming and being parents.

This passage from 1 Peter 1 is hugely comforting. Notice that it is God who does the saving, the shielding and the sustaining. He holds fast to us like a safety harness as we ride on the roller coaster of parenting – eyes streaming, noses running, knees knocking, stomach churning. But while the ride may be unpleasant at times, we will reach our destination. He guarantees it and makes us ready for it.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9

So if you are in the thick of the little years please be encouraged. They matter. They count. They are refining you and making you fit for your eternal destiny with God.

And in contrast to eternity; even though the little years can feel never ending, they do come to an end.

Our babies don’t stay small forever.

So kiss their squidgy cheeks, cling tight to those dimply hands, take a deep breath and a shot of coffee and video their tiny, cherub-like sweetness to capture that squeaky voice and button noise for a future day.

Because while the little years are seriously hard work, they are the days that nostalgia are made of.