driving to tutor some of my favourite maths students on monday afternoon, i pulled out of the car-park after picking up my take-away chai. i had to wait to turn right onto pacific highway at a set of red lights and in front of a pedestrian crossing.
a little girl and her mother pushing a pram approached the road. the little girl can't have been more than six. she was sulking. her bottom lip was down-turned and her shoulders slumped. they stopped at the crossing to wait for the red man to turn green, and the mother tapped the little girl's shoulder to make sure the little girl didn't cross the road without her. at this point she was seemingly unaware of her daughter's pout, and so, the little girl turned to her mother, just enough to make her mood apparent.
i'm not sure what the little girl was upset about. it was windy and she didn't have a jumper on, which would have been a practical reason to pout. but her mother's response made me think otherwise.
the mother simply began to laugh.
the little girl obviously did not enjoy this and stamped her tiny, angry foot on the pavement. her mother chuckled again and gently placed her hand on her little girl's shoulder. another angry foot stamp followed and the little girl shrugged her mother's touch from her shoulder. at this point, i half-expected the mother to have had enough and to begin pointing her finger and scolding her offspring.
but, with a smile on her face, the mother crouched down and with what would have been her chiding finger, instead tickled the little girl's side. a grin broke out on her daughter's face for a split second. the little girl turned her face away to hide her toothy joy from her mother's view, using all her concentration to quickly return her face to its former grumpy state. a second tickle later though, and the little girl's grumpiness could not help but turn to glee. she turned to her mother, cheekily stuck her tongue out and turning to stand by the pram, snuck her little hand into her mother's.
the mother laughed again. the red man turned green. and they crossed the road. probably to the cafe where the mother had a babycino planned for her little miss.
the whole encounter lasted about a minute, but it was like watching the last six months of my life play out in simple motion. God has been so patient with my grumpiness and fussing and i've often been at a loss as to how to approach Him after having treated him like the stubborn little girl stamping her foot.
i guess it's been a bit of an unsettling six months. none of the plans i've made have really stuck and none of the ways in which i've tried to tackle the things that have come up have really worked, at all. i've learnt a lot about tricking myself into trust, while really being burdened by anxiety. but the Lord has been kind and tapped my shoulder and tickled my side and i'm finally starting to see that my prayers have hardly been left unanswered.
i finish my masters degree in ten days and yesterday i realised in telling a friend how i was that it
had been four and a half years since i'd been in a position where i had
no people or places really tying me down and opportunities to seek and
decisions to make. it was simultaneously scary and exciting.
and then, today He walked me across the pedestrian crossing and i had no idea where i was going until He sat me down in the cafe and placed in front of me the large, hot, have-here teapot of earl grey with the side of banana bread i've been waiting for despite the fact that i'd forgotten i'd even asked for it.
and i am so thankful that i am loved by a sweetly kind Father who, even after all my tantrums, allows me to slip my small, small, small hand into His and walk by Him as he chuckles.
protect, trust, hope, persevere
it is a tough thing to love properly a person you know you love deeply and dearly.
it is easy to gush rosewater words. but what's to stop them swiftly getting left behind as time goes on? at best our phrases can be a fleeting evocation of sincere sentiment. at worst, they can be the false lull of security in an affection which is here today and gone tomorrow.
it is much more difficult to patiently bear a beloved's blunders, to kindly dress their wounds, to do away with all the little things that shake us and cause us to covet and puff ourselves up in their presence, to respect their whole person rather than a single dimension, to stow away personal desire and satisfaction for their sake, to not just keep frustration to yourself but to work through it prayerfully and humbly and without pointing fingers, and to be consistent and constant in freely granting amnesty.
a love that is all those things cannot be shaken. but sometimes, often even, a proper love that is all those things is silent.
and not saying a word is hard because you can't be certain anyone will ever hear even though you are loving at the top of your lungs.
it is easy to gush rosewater words. but what's to stop them swiftly getting left behind as time goes on? at best our phrases can be a fleeting evocation of sincere sentiment. at worst, they can be the false lull of security in an affection which is here today and gone tomorrow.
it is much more difficult to patiently bear a beloved's blunders, to kindly dress their wounds, to do away with all the little things that shake us and cause us to covet and puff ourselves up in their presence, to respect their whole person rather than a single dimension, to stow away personal desire and satisfaction for their sake, to not just keep frustration to yourself but to work through it prayerfully and humbly and without pointing fingers, and to be consistent and constant in freely granting amnesty.
a love that is all those things cannot be shaken. but sometimes, often even, a proper love that is all those things is silent.
and not saying a word is hard because you can't be certain anyone will ever hear even though you are loving at the top of your lungs.
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