When Did This Happen?

It's amazing. When did this:

Become this:

And when did this:

Morph into this:

Every parent marvels over the growth of their children. "He's just getting so big!" They exclaim. And, "I can't believe it, I feel like just yesterday she was a newborn!" This morning, as I watched Gianna dress herself for school and Dominic fed himself Gianna's left over oatmeal, I couldn't help thinking to myself for the millionth time, "Who are these big children? And when did they get here? Where are my babies?"

A few months ago I read Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy  on the recommendation of Maureen over at Little Stay at Home Momma. In it, the author shares correspondence with C.S Lewis during his conversion to Christianity. One of my favorite letters from Lewis regards his logical proof that there is some other, higher place for which we are all intended. He says,


"We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. “How he’s grown!” we exclaim, “How time flies!” as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal."

Of course, that higher place where there will be no time as we know it now, is heaven. How wonderful that in the swiftly growing bodies and minds of our children we are reminded that we are just visitors here; that we are working for the Kingdom.  In moments of sadness or nostalgia over our no-longer-a-baby babies, may we remember that we are destined to become, one day, inhabitants of Heaven.