One Heartbeat at a Time

January 31, 2024 by  
Filed under Family Focus

By Khristy Hullett 

My kids and I recently filmed a video for church for Mother's Day set to the Steven Curtis Chapman song “One Heartbeat at a Time.” I've seen the video in part; they're still polishing the final product. What I have seen assures me that this will be an amazing keepsake—a moment frozen in time of my children at 7, 4, and 2. I adore them and am so delighted to see them growing up to be special little people. I've found it hard to let them go, and I'm still adjusting to the great strides they're making in standing on their own two feet, but today that's not what struck me as I drove down the road in my Mom Mobile (minivan).

Today I thought about how I felt like a gerbil on a wheel. I go, go, go, drive, drive, drive, but never seem to get anywhere. And it's not just the driving—it's the laundry, and the housework, and the grading papers, and the yardwork, and the baths, and the meals, and the….do you see where I'm going with this? The repetitiveness of it all made me want to scream: What is the point? Am I accomplishing anything?

Now this makes me sound a little psycho. I love my family every day; I even enjoy nurturing them, including meals, bath, and laundry, most of the time….okay, I'll be honest. I never enjoy the laundry, but I do enjoy taking care of them. Despite this, there are days when I feel like I go full speed and get nothing accomplished. This was one of those days.

But in the middle of this frustration, it came to me. In my mind, I saw gleaming piles of golden sand…grain after grain after grain. A beautiful image, but at first glance completely irrelevant. And then I started thinking about sand. Tiny grains of sand seem very insignificant, but in fact, they pile up rather quickly. Have you ever tried to get sand out of your car….or out of your bathing suit for that matter? You work with sand and before you know it you have a sand castle, sand dunes, a veritable beach!

Beach building is not for the faint of heart. We live in a society where instant gratification is the rule. We feel deprived if we have to wait one second for anything. I took a step back and remembered I was not deprived, that worthwhile accomplishments have to be striven for—not handed to us on a platter. And I remembered that every day I was piling up my grains of sand…some days more than others, but always, always working toward the goal. One day probably too soon, I'll have my beach….and a history with every gleaming grain.

Read the words to Steven Curtis Chapman's song with me. Grains of sands, heartbeats…both hard to measure but both immeasurably valuable.

You're up all night with a screaming baby
You run all day at the speed of life
And every day you feel a little bit less
Like the beautiful woman you are

So you fall into bed when you run out of hours
And you wonder if anything worth doing got done
Oh, maybe you just don't know
Or maybe you've forgotten

You, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

With every "I know you can do it"
Every tear that you kiss away
So many little things that seem to go unnoticed
They're just like the drops of rain over time
They become a river

And you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

Resource:
"One Heartbeat at a Time"
From the album "This Moment"
@2007 Sparrow

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