I should be getting ready for the day and packing lunches and wrapping birthday gifts for Noah. The kids will be up soon and then it's a mad-dash to make it to school on time and then the entire day will unfold like a 10K race for time.
But my totally unorganized and rambling thoughts about Noah compel me to write.
He is a mystery to me. A lovely mystery...and often a monstrous mystery.
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| A boy on his long-awaited birthday - a real big kid now. |
Judah is my inner child. Everything he does and says and the tears behind his eyes reflect everything I have always felt in my own heart. There is no mystery there - only deep, deep understanding.
But Noah is unlike me, utterly.
Lately he has been responding to my unwanted requests and commands with - Why does it always have to be YOUR way?! It shouldn't always be YOUR way! You always get YOUR way!!!
Already he is thoroughly proficient at challenging my authority.
And every single time I cross his will (which is like 103 times a day) he responds vindictively with - When I grow up, there will be no grandmas allowed in my house! (Because he assumes I will be a grandmother).
And yet, his childish faith cuts me to my cynical core. Shames me for my hypocrisy. Exposes too much of my unbelief.
Today is his 4th birthday and he said he's glad to turn one year older - so I'm closer to being a grandpa. And then I'll die. And then I'll be in God's new world!
Noah often says - Let's talk about God's new world! - and answers almost every future looking question with - I want to go to God's new world.
And he asks me about his body v. his soul. And about the robbers that died on each side of Christ. And he marvels that almighty God could be incarnate as the least of these. And he makes me say things that sound ridiculous to my modern, culturally-assimilated ears.
Things I'm embarrassed to say in polite liberal company.
And then make me embarrassed by my embarrassment.
Which keeps me in the only good and safe posture I know - repentance.
2 comments:
I'm glad you took the time to write this. It's a beautiful post.
I hope it didn't throw the rest of the timing of your day too completely off. I've done the same thing before when I had the need to write. I usually feel the resulting changes in my schedule are worth it in exchange for the settled feeling of having my thoughts written down the way they were in my head at the time (because they are never quite the same later, even if I do have some notes jotted down).
Thanks Kindra - you know exactly how I felt. And you're right - it was worth it! I rushed around extra hard as a madwoman that day, but at least I tried to touch the mundane magic of my strange alien creature on his birthday...and maybe I captured an ounce - priceless.
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