28 Oct For the 10,000 moments a mother doesn’t see

I stood in front of the elephants at the National Zoo smiling as I took a photo of the magnificent creatures. Two of my girls had nudged forward to the front of a small crowd to get a better look at some of Dumbos distant relatives.

I looked at my girls with their hands on the rail, faces stretched forward to eagerly watch the elephants. I looked up to take the photo. I looked down….and they were gone.

My husband and I exchanged panicked glances as the moment of realization struck us both: where did they go? You see, in a matter of about 5 seconds, they had disappeared.

We started by scouring the elephant exhibit, weaving through every person and stroller and then moving over towards a play area that was adjacent to the elephant-viewing area. They were nowhere to be found.

From Panic to Prayer

I know it may not seem possible, but as we searched, in a matter of 3 minutes, it seemed as if a million thoughts flooded my mind at once:

Where could they have gone?! They were right in front of me!

Why did they run off? What if someone snatched them right from under our noses!

What if I never see my babies again! Lord, how will I go on living??

My husband had a strong intuitive sense that the girls had wandered back down the path that originally brought us to the elephants. I thought personally that there is no way they would wander out that far on their own, but they were nowhere to be seen around us, so he ran up the path looking for them.

What brought me back to reality was my eldest daughter who stood beside me with tears brimming in her eyes. “Mom, what should we do?!” I realized that in that moment, she was looking desperately for me to give her some sort of direction…some sort of hope that her sisters would be okay.

I took her hands quickly. “Let’s pray,” I said. “God is everywhere and sees everything and He knows where your sisters are right now. Let’s ask him to bring them back to us!”

We both prayed and asked God to bring us back together quickly.

As we lifted our heads, we saw my husband walking back down the path holding the hands of my two little girls. We heard their side of the story: One of them couldn’t see us for a moment when we were looking at the elephants. She thought that we had headed back down the path, so they ran to try to find us. Thankfully, they had run into a zoo employee at the end of the path who they were talking to when my husband found them.

We had hugs all around and after a little while, I had almost forgotten the thoughts that had raced through my mind only moments before. My babies were with me and they were safe.

We Serve an All-Seeing, Omnipresent God

“Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?” declares the LORD “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD” Jeremiah 23:24.

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Watching the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

At the park a few weeks ago, another mother and I watched as our kids ran and played in a nearby field. She joked that it’s a good thing there are angels watching over us because our kids certainly keep their angels working overtime!

We laughed about it and shared stories about “near misses” – all the times that a child had a bad fall, ran into a street, got lost, or avoided a serious injury. I said, “Honestly, I don’t think we have any idea how many times God has protected our children that we didn’t even know about. There will probably be a tape running in heaven for us and we’ll just be like, “WOW!”

Regardless of whether you are a free-range or helicopter mom, we moms have one very important thing in common – we are human. We are finite. Contrary to popular belief, we do not have eyes in the backs of our heads.

We make mistakes. We forget things. We think a door is shut and it isn’t. We do really normal things like look up to take a picture of an elephant and look down to see that our kids our missing.

Here’s the truth: No matter how diligent and vigilant you are to look out for your child, there will be moments you miss. There will be thousands of moments that you will simply not see your child; you will not be physically present in that moment to know what your child is seeing, facing, doing, saying. You will not be in control.

It is because of this reality that we can thank God that He is everything we are not. There are no limits to his reach. He sees all; He knows all; He is everywhere.

Here’s a prayer to help us release control of our children to our all-seeing God: “Lord, for all the moments when I’m not there and I don’t see my children, I thank you that you see them. I pray that you would watch over them, care for them, shield them from evil and filter every situation they face by your good and fathering heart. Protect them when they are vulnerable and help them make wise choices as they grow. Thank you that you are there with them at every step, even when I can’t be. I release any control I have as a mother to you and trust you with my children. Thank you that you care for them even more than I do. Amen.“