18 SUMMERS

WE ONLY GET 18 SUMMERS

My feed is full of the pithy reminder that we only get 18 summers with our kids. The words are always set against idyllic backdrops–bare feet flying through the woods and sun shocked skin plunging into lakes. Oppressively cheerful vignettes of picnics and ice cream and lazy afternoons, urging me to soak it all in. 

The dictum to live like a sponge comes with a threat: that it’s short; that I’ll miss it; and that I’ll regret each moment I live short of fully present.

“18 summers” is quietly crushing because I don’t need the prompt. The present is always stalked by the knowledge that it’s fleeting. 

I can feel it.

The cuddles are shorter. Their faces are losing the softness of childhood for sharper edges of youth. Fewer things are healed with a kiss.

In between, I get so many days of their 18 summers wrong.

I’m quick when I should be slow.

Firm when I should be soft. 

Moving when I should be still.

Even perfect days have their moments. One harsh word can drown out 99 gentle ones and I can’t know what will stick. We don’t control what settles in their hearts and trying guarantees dysfunction. 

It’s terrifying.

GOD GETS THEM ALL

The only way to bear the weight of 18 summers is not to think about it because we can’t control what takes root or how their memories will reconstruct these years. Trying to just guarantee dysfunction. 

One day they’ll tell me. I don’t know what they’ll say, but I do know that I will have missed the mark. My version of their childhood won’t match theirs. No matter how hard I try, I’ll have been less than they needed. 

Which is why I need someone to carry their summers. Jesus can have the things I can’t control. He can hold the imperfect days and misjudged moments. He can take their memories. Because if one messy moment can wreck our best intentions, the opposite is true too. Repair can beat the break. Redemption matters more than never getting lost. Our halting obedience is all that He needs, because one better word covers ours.

18 summers with perfect moments and mistakes we’d pay to undo. Too busy and too slow; too much and too little. We won’t get them right. But when we give them to Jesus, we don’t need to. 

There is grace for when we live like a sponge and grace for all the days we try to fast forward. Grace for sunburns and skinned knees and campfires and stalemates. Grace for our loaves and fish. 

We get 18 summers. 

God gets them all.