Lessons From My Son

I love how my children view the world.  An ugly car lot to me is a marvelous scape of colored balloons to them.  While I am annoyed at a delay at a railroad crossing, they are ecstatic about the passing train. They rejoice in the majestic wonder of nature that is a bunch of crows sitting on top of a building ("Mama, look! Birds!!") while I see ugly birds.  To the pure all things are pure, and to a beautiful soul all things are beautiful.

Not too long ago, me and my kids were in the bathroom at Walmart.  I don't know what it is about Walmart that awakens my daughters GI system, but I swear 85% of our trips there involve her needing to "go poo-poos".  So we spend about 15 minutes (a girl needs time to relax after all!) in the bathroom, while I try and keep Jackson from feeding his little budding nervous system with tactile information from every germ ridden surface possible.

On this occasion, Kinsey was sitting in the stall while I walked Jackson around to try and keep him from squirming out of my arms.  A lady walked out of a neighboring stall looking a little bit like one of the stars of those "people of Walmart" photo albums.  I hardly realized the subconscious appraisal I was doing of all of her physical deficits when my son leaned out from my arms and gave her one of his award winning dimply grins and exclaimed "Hi!" in the sweetest, most friendly voice possible.  The lady smiled back with obvious pleasure and I felt the familiar pang of much deserved conviction.

No wonder the world loves babies.  A baby doesn't see old or young, ugly or pretty, fat or skinny, fashionable or tacky.  They see a human face and they want it to smile back at them.  I know that the time will come when my son will no longer just see a human face but will start adding judgements to it.  The seeds of brokenness will grow in time as they do in all of us.  As his mother all I can do is weed as many out as I can identify and passionately plant as many gospel seeds as I can while I can and pray they grow.  But how I love this time of purity and beauty.  And how thankful I am for how it convicts my own heart of the weeds I've allowed to grow there.