When you’re in the middle of something, like baking bread or raising children, you just don’t know how it’s going to turn out. You put in all the ingredients, you get your hands in there and mix and kneed, you wait for it to rise, you shape it, you wait some more, and then finally, one day you have your result. But all along the way you are just hoping it will turn out okay.
Being a parent and raising a child is such a slow process (even though it feels like it’s flying by) that I sometimes feel anxious about how I’m doing. Sure, we provide all the necessities. And we have fun together. And they are learning all the time (math! new words! how to throw banana across the dining room!).
But are they learning the important stuff?
Today Casey stayed with us in church instead of going to the kids activity. In the course of that hour, he fidgeted, he sang, he asked me 27 times how many things are left on the order of service, and maybe he listened a little. Surely he didn’t catch it all, but he heard things like:
- one voice can change the world
- faith, hope and love
- justice
- compassion
- kindness can heal us
And it occurred to me that these are just a few of the ingredients we are putting together, bit by bit, to give shape to a way of living that is open-hearted and loving and kind to all beings. I am seeing that this is how we help them make something wonderful out of their lives.
I love having the girls stay in worship with me(although it’s sometimes stressful as the Pastor’s Wife to have the “noisy kids”). It just melts my heart when I hear them sing along with the doxology, chime in with the Lord’s Prayer, or recite the benediction with Daddy(it’s usually the same blessing we do each evening here at home).
Bit by bit…I like that.