hands of children

Have you ever noticed how large your children can be in your life? How the dailiness of having them their makes them seem so much stronger and larger and so much less dependent than they are?

So often, I get to the end of the day and my body is sore from chasing, holding, protecting, serving, and yes even disciplining my children. My brain aches, my shoulders burn, my thumbs and wrists are numb. The damage and pain those little bodies can inflict on my big strong body is incredible. And the next day, when I get up my feet ache in protest at more chasing, escorting, hurrying, and racing after them.

In short, they loom so large in my life physically, that I forget how small and fragile they are. Until, a hand slips unnoticed in mine and I once again feel how small and unprotected those bones in my oldest daughter's fingers are. Or I pull a shirt over the youngest child's head and button the buttons at her throat and I feel the softness and vulnerabiility of the passageway for breath. Then I remember how small they are. I remember how fragile this trust is.

My hands beat God, thrust Him away. My feet flee causing Him to chase after me. My demands are never ending. It was my sin that nailed His hands to the tree of pain and suffering. But, He continues in His love for me, just as I am.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe