🌸 What If “One Day” Is Today?

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” — Psalm 118:24

The other day I realized something about myself.

There is hardly a day that goes by when I do not say some version of:

I will do that later.

When this happens, then I will…

One day.

And I started thinking about how much of my life I have quietly stored away for one day.

I have things in my house that I am saving for a rainy day.

A gift I bought for someone and somehow never gave.

Dishes I am saving for the right holiday or the right gathering.

Clothes I am waiting to wear when I lose a little weight, change my hair, or have somewhere special enough to go.

There are things I want to learn.

Places I want to go.

People I mean to call.

I still tell myself that one day I am going to speak Spanish fluently.

And somewhere along the way, I realized that I have been waiting for “one day” for much of my life.

But what exactly am I waiting for?

I think sometimes we imagine that our real life is going to begin when everything lines up just right.

When we have more time.

When we feel more confident.

When the house looks better.

When our body changes.

When the children are older.

When the money is right.

When life settles down.

Then we will wear it.

Use it.

Learn it.

Visit.

Call.

Celebrate.

Begin.

But life does not always send an announcement saying, This is the day you have been waiting for.

Sometimes the ordinary day we are living right now is the day.

I am here.

I am able.

I am healthy enough to enjoy some things now.

There are people I love who can still receive the gift, hear the words, answer the phone, sit around my table, and make a memory with me.

That matters.

I do not want to keep saving everything good for a version of life that may never look exactly the way I imagined.

Maybe I should use the dishes.

Wear the outfit.

Give the gift.

Make the call.

Start learning the Spanish I keep talking about.

Take the picture before I lose the weight.

Invite someone over before everything in the house is perfect.

Do something with what God has already placed in my hands.

There is wisdom in planning for tomorrow. But I am beginning to see that there is also wisdom in not postponing every bit of joy until tomorrow gets here.

Not the day when everything finally comes together.

This day.

Maybe “one day” is not somewhere out in the distance.

Maybe, for some of the things we keep postponing, one day is today.

Your MOMENT

What have you been saving for “one day”?

Something you own?

Something you want to learn?

Someone you need to call?

A place you want to go?

A part of yourself you keep telling yourself you will enjoy later?

You do not have to change your whole life today.

But maybe choose one thing you have been saving for one day—and bring it into today.

Use it.

Wear it.

Give it.

Call them.

Begin.

Every MOMENT Matters.

🌸 When Your Adult Child Chooses Differently

Scripture

“And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” — 1 Peter 4:8 (KJV)

There comes a time in motherhood when advice becomes something your child can choose not to take.

That may be one of the hardest adjustments of all.

You can spend years teaching, correcting, praying, setting boundaries and trying to give your child a foundation that will help them make wise decisions.

Then one day, that child is grown.

And the decision is theirs.

They may choose a career you would not have chosen.

A relationship that concerns you.

A different way of raising their own children.

They may handle money differently.

Make decisions about where or how they live that you do not understand.

They may question things you thought were firmly settled.

They may even make choices that conflict with the faith and values you worked hard to teach them.

What does a mother do then?

Because loving an adult child is different from raising one.

There are some things a mother can no longer require.

There are consequences she cannot prevent.

There are lessons she cannot teach on her timetable.

And there are decisions she simply does not get to make anymore.

That does not mean she stops being a mother.

It means motherhood has entered a different season.

I have listened to mothers talk about this season.

Sometimes underneath the concern is fear.

What if this choice hurts my child?

Sometimes it is disappointment.

I thought she knew better.

Sometimes there is confusion.

Where did this come from?

And sometimes there is a quieter question that a mother may be almost afraid to say aloud:

Did I do something wrong?

Maybe that is one of the places where God needs to meet a mother's heart too.

Your adult child's choices are not a final report card on your motherhood.

You can teach well and your child can choose differently.

You can pray faithfully and your child can still make a mistake.

You can create a loving home and raise a child who eventually sees some things differently than you do.

Their ability to choose is part of becoming an adult.

And that leaves a mother with a different kind of work to do.

Not controlling.

Not rescuing every time life becomes uncomfortable.

Not withdrawing love to make a point.

Not turning every conversation into another opportunity to convince them.

Sometimes the work is learning how to remain close without taking over.

That doesn't mean you cannot speak.

Love is not silence.

There may be moments when you need to say:

“I love you. I don't agree with this decision, and I want to be honest about that.”

But what happens after you say it matters too.

Can you still listen?

Can you still have dinner together?

Can you still call just to ask how the day went without bringing the decision into every conversation?

Can your child disagree with you and still know there is a place at your table?

That can be difficult when you believe they are making a mistake.

Because sometimes rescuing looks a lot like love.

Sometimes control disguises itself as concern.

And sometimes withdrawing feels like the only way to communicate how seriously we disagree.

But there is another choice.

We can give our adult children room to experience God for themselves.

God is capable of reaching them without our constant commentary.

He can convict.

He can redirect.

He can teach.

He can close doors.

He can open others.

He can use consequences.

He can send people into their lives.

And He can do something mothers sometimes struggle to do:

He can work on His timetable instead of ours.

That does not mean every choice will eventually become the choice you wanted.

Sometimes the harder surrender is accepting that your grown child may build a life that simply looks different from the one you pictured.

And you may have to ask God to show you the difference between something that is truly harmful and something that is simply different from you.

That distinction matters.

Because the goal was never to raise another version of ourselves.

It was to raise a person who would eventually stand before God with a life, a conscience, choices and a relationship with Him that are her own.

So when you are tempted to chase, control, rescue or withdraw, there may be another prayer to pray:

Father, show me how to love my child well in the life she is actually living—not only in the life I hoped she would choose.

That kind of love does not require agreement.

But it may require trust.

Not only trust in your child.

Trust in God.

🌸 The MOMENT

If your adult child has chosen differently, ask yourself:

Does my child know that my love remains even when my agreement does not?

Then bring the part you cannot control to God.

You do not have to solve your adult child's life.

You can speak truth with love.

You can maintain healthy boundaries.

You can stop rescuing.

You can keep the door open.

And you can pray.

Sometimes the most faithful thing a mother can do is entrust to God the child she can no longer lead by the hand.

🙏 A Prayer for the Mother of an Adult Child

Father, You know this child better than anyone. You know the hopes her mother carried for her, the prayers she has prayed and the things that concern her now.

Give her wisdom to know when to speak and when to listen. Show her where loving has become rescuing, where concern has become control, or where disappointment is tempting her to pull away.

Help her see her child clearly—not only through the decisions she wishes were different.

Give her courage to maintain necessary boundaries without withholding love. When she is afraid, remind her that her child is never beyond Your reach.

And when the life her child chooses looks different from the life she imagined, help her trust You with the parts of the story she cannot write.

Keep the relationship tender enough for conversation, strong enough for truth and covered in Your grace.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

MOMENT: My adult child's choices belong to her. How I love her while she makes them belongs to me.

Pause. Pray. Love without taking over.

❤️ Every MOMENT Matters.

— Monica Lynne Wilkins
MOMENT Moms™
MOMENTMoms.org

🌸 What Am I Still Holding?

Scripture

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.” — Psalm 139:23 (KJV)

There are prayers I can pray rather easily.

“Lord, protect my family.”

“Lord, guide me.”

“Lord, open the right doors.”

“Lord, bless the people I love.”

But there is another prayer that feels different.

Lord, show me what I have not surrendered to You.

That has been on my heart.

Not what someone else needs to change.
Not what I wish God would fix around me.

What am I still holding?

Because I can love God, pray, read His Word, serve, encourage other people—and still have places in my life where my hands are tightly closed.

Sometimes it is a person.

We say we have given our children to God, but we are still trying to control every decision, protect them from every consequence and write the ending of their story.

Sometimes it is a marriage or another family relationship. We have already decided what healing should look like, what the other person needs to do and how God needs to fix it.

Sometimes it is work. We ask God to lead while quietly hoping He leads us exactly where we have already decided we want to go.

And sometimes what we are holding is not something precious.

Sometimes it is something God has already been asking us to put down.

The eating habits we keep excusing.

The relationship we know does not honor Him.

The need to stay busy because being still makes us uncomfortable.

The conversation that becomes gossip, even though we called it concern.

The resentment we keep rehearsing.

The need to be right.

The need to be needed.

The need to control.

And perhaps that is why surrender can be so difficult.

We usually have a reason for holding on.

Fear.

Love.

Comfort.

Loneliness.

Habit.

Pride.

Uncertainty.

Sometimes we are afraid of what God might ask us to release. Sometimes we are afraid of what will happen once we no longer have our hands on it.

But surrender is not telling God something He does not already know.

It is opening our hands before the One who already knows what is in them.

I am learning that surrender is not one grand prayer we pray once and never have to revisit.

There are things I gave God yesterday that I reached for again this morning.

So perhaps today's prayer does not need to be complicated.

Father, show me my closed hands.

Show me where I am asking You to lead while still insisting on my own way.

Show me what I have renamed, justified or become comfortable carrying.

Show me the people and outcomes I am trying to control.

And give me enough trust in You to loosen my grip.

Not because I do not care.

Because I believe You care even more.

🌸 The MOMENT

Take a quiet minute today and ask yourself:

What am I still holding that I need to surrender to God?

Do not answer for your spouse.

Do not answer for your child.

Do not answer for the person whose choices have been frustrating you.

Answer for you.

Then take it to your Father exactly as it is.

You do not need polished words.

You may simply need an open hand.

🙏 Prayer

Father, I surrender to You what I have been trying to manage without You, what I have been afraid to release to You, and what I already know You have asked me to put down. Search my heart. Show me what I cannot see and what I have chosen not to see. Teach me to trust You with my children, my marriage, my relationships, my work, my habits, my desires, my future—and myself. I do not want to give You only the parts of my life that are easy to surrender. I want You to have all of me. Help me open my hands. In Jesus' name, Amen.

MOMENT: Surrender is not caring less. It is trusting God more.

Pause. Pray. Open your hands. Trust.

❤️ Every MOMENT Matters.

— Monica Lynne Wilkins
MOMENT Moms™
MOMENTMoms.org

🌸KNOWN

For the woman who wonders whether anyone really sees her

Scripture: Genesis 16:13 (NKJV)
“You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees.”

You can be needed by a lot of people and still feel known by almost no one.

People may know what you do for them.
They know that you will answer the phone.
They know you will remember the birthday, check on the family, make the appointment, solve the problem, pray the prayer, show up when somebody needs you.

But sometimes you wonder:

Does anyone know me?

Not the capable version.
Not the woman who keeps everything moving.
Not the person everyone assumes is fine.

Me.

The woman who gets tired.
The woman who sometimes feels left out.
The woman who has things she does not know how to explain.
The woman who wishes somebody would notice without having to be told.

There is something especially painful about feeling unseen while surrounded by people.

You can sit at a table and feel alone.

You can belong to a family and still feel misunderstood.

You can serve in church, work with people every day, have contacts in your phone and names in your social media feed—and still long for one person who seems to understand what is happening inside you.

Hagar knew something about that.

Her story in Genesis 16 is complicated and painful. She found herself in circumstances she did not choose, mistreated, overwhelmed and eventually alone in the wilderness.

And it was there—in a place where she probably felt forgotten—that God met her.

What moves me most is the name Hagar gave Him:

“You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees.”

She did not simply discover a God who knew where she was geographically.

She discovered a God who saw her.

Her circumstances.
Her hurt.
Her fear.
Her future.

Her.

And I think some of us need that reminder.

God does not only know the polished version of you.

He knows the thought you stopped yourself from saying.

He knows why something hurt more than you admitted.

He knows why you have been quieter lately.

He knows the relationship you wish were different.

He knows the friendship you miss.

He knows what it feels like to be the one who checks on everybody else and sometimes wonders who would notice if you became quiet.

He knows the parts of your story other people misunderstood.

And you do not have to explain yourself perfectly before He understands.

That may be one of the safest things about being with God.

You do not have to perform being okay.

You can sit with Him without preparing the right words.

You can say, Father, I am lonely.

I feel overlooked.

I do not think they understand me.

I am tired of always being the strong one.

I do not even know exactly what I am feeling today.

And none of that makes Him pull away.

This is the Father who already knows.

There are times when God will bring people into our lives who see us well, and those relationships are gifts. We should make room for friendship, community and honest connection.

But even the people who love us most will sometimes misunderstand us.

They are human.

They cannot see every layer.

God can.

And perhaps that is where some healing begins—not in convincing everybody else to finally understand us, but in becoming more comfortable sitting with the One who already does.

Being known by God does not mean loneliness never hurts.

It means loneliness is not evidence that you have been forgotten.

Being overlooked by people does not make you invisible.

Being misunderstood does not change what God knows to be true about you.

And a quiet season does not mean He has stopped paying attention.

Maybe today you do not need to figure anything out.

Maybe this is simply a MOMENT to sit with your Father and let yourself be known.

No long prayer.

No perfect devotional thought.

Just:

“Father, here I am.”

And perhaps for today, that is enough.

A MOMENT to Reflect

Where in my life have I been feeling unseen or misunderstood lately?

Give yourself room to write without trying to make the answer sound spiritual.

Then simply pray:

Father, thank You for seeing me completely. Help me become comfortable bringing the real me into Your presence. When I feel overlooked, lonely or misunderstood, remind me that I am never unknown to You. Teach me to recognize Your presence and Your love even in the quiet places. Amen.

🌸 MOMENT

You may feel overlooked without being unseen.
You may feel misunderstood without being unknown.
Your Heavenly Father knows you—and He still draws near.

Pause. Pray. Be honest. Let yourself be known.

❤️ Every MOMENT Matters.

— Monica Lynne Wilkins
MOMENT Moms™
MOMENTMoms.org

When God Says Wait

This Week's Verse

"But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah 40:31 (NKJV)

Today's Reflection

If I'm honest, waiting has never been one of my strengths.

I like to make plans, check things off my list, and see progress. Waiting can feel like standing still while everyone else is moving ahead.

But over the years, I've begun to realize something important: God's "wait" is not the same as God's "no."

Sometimes He asks us to wait because He's preparing us.

Sometimes He's preparing the opportunity.

Sometimes He's preparing the people we'll meet along the way.

And sometimes He's preparing our hearts to receive what we've been praying for.

There have been moments when I questioned why doors weren't opening as quickly as I had hoped. Looking back now, I can see that many of those delays became some of God's greatest blessings. If things had happened according to my timeline, I might have missed the lessons, relationships, and growth that only came through waiting.

As I prepare for a new season, I'm reminded that faith isn't just trusting God when the answer is "yes." Faith is also trusting Him when the answer is "not yet."

Waiting doesn't mean God has forgotten you.

It doesn't mean your prayers aren't being heard.

It doesn't mean your purpose has been put on hold.

Sometimes waiting is where God does His deepest work.

So if you're waiting today—for a new job, restored health, a relationship, direction, healing, or an answered prayer—don't lose heart.

Keep praying.

Keep growing.

Keep trusting.

The same God who gave you the promise is faithful to fulfill it in His perfect time.

The MOMENT Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Waiting isn't always easy, but I know Your timing is better than my own. Help me to trust You when I don't see immediate answers. Give me peace while I wait, wisdom while I prepare, and faith to believe that You are working even when I cannot see it.

Teach me to embrace each moment, knowing that You are shaping me for what lies ahead.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

This Week's Challenge

Is there an area of your life where you've been feeling impatient?

Instead of asking, "God, why is this taking so long?"

Try asking,

"Lord, what are You teaching me while I wait?"

You may discover that the waiting itself is part of the blessing.

MOMENTS I LEARNED

Waiting isn't wasted time.

It's often where faith grows, character is strengthened, and God quietly prepares us for what's next.

Before You Go...

If this Reflection encouraged you, consider sharing it with someone who may be waiting on an answer from God today.

You never know how a few words of hope can make all the difference.

Until next week,

Monica Wilkins

Founder, The MOMENT

Pause. Pray. Reflect. Grow.

The Waiting Isn't Wasted

There are seasons in life when it feels as though everything is on pause, but God is still at work.

Lately, I've been thinking about seasons of waiting.

Waiting for answers.

Waiting for feedback.

Waiting for clarity.

I've learned that waiting isn't just about time. It's about trust.

Over the past year, I've realized that waiting doesn't have to mean standing still.

Some of the most meaningful work God has done in my life hasn't happened after reaching a milestone. It's happened while I've been writing, learning, serving, spending time with family, building ministry, and simply trying to be faithful with what's already in front of me.

Looking back, I realize those weren't interruptions to God's plan. They were part of it.

Purpose isn't found only in the destination. It's found in how we choose to live while we're on the journey.

Every day we're becoming someone. The question is, who are we becoming while we wait?

I've come to believe that even when we can't see the full picture, God is still working. Sometimes He's opening doors we don't yet see. Other times, He's quietly preparing us for what comes next.

Sometimes the greatest MOMENT isn't when God changes our circumstances. It's when He changes us while we wait.

So if you're in a season of waiting, don't assume nothing is happening. Whether you're waiting for direction, healing, a breakthrough, an answer, or simply the next step, God is still at work.

Keep learning.

Keep preparing.

Keep serving.

Keep showing up.

Trust that even when you can't see what God is doing, He is still at work.

MOMENT Prayer

Lord, thank You for reminding me that waiting is never wasted when I place it in Your hands. Help me to trust You when I can't see the whole picture. Teach me to keep learning, serving, growing, and walking faithfully in the purpose You've already given me. Shape me into the person You are calling me to become while I wait. Help me to trust that Your timing is always better than my own. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Pause & Reflect

Before you move on with your day, take a MOMENT to ask yourself:

Who am I becoming while I wait?

Sit quietly for a moment.

Invite God into your thoughts.

Then ask Him to help you see this season not as time lost, but as time He is using to prepare you for what comes next.

Every moment matters.

Monica Wilkins