Wednesday, November 29, 2006

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

12 comments:

  1. I love this post and I can really relate to what you're saying here. The physical demands can be so overwhelming, especially when you're hurting. It just seems to overwhelm everything else. I had one of those mornings when I was just surviving. Thankfully things are improving as the day goes on. I love the quote you put at the end. So true!

    I found your comment about sewing your girl's dresses interesting. I didn't really start sewing much until I took some classes in high school. Then several years later, just before I was married, I started sewing clothes for myself. After that I hardly touched a project for about ten years, until this past summer. Now I wonder how I could have gone so long without it!

    Now that the kids are getting older and more independant I have more energy in the evenings, but when they were all small (three children under age three) I was pretty much just surviving day to day.

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  2. I've noticed the same thing about children and their vulnerable little bodies, and you put it so wonderfully. Their little hands especially...

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  3. PS This is kind of silly but with the largeness of a child's impact vs the actual vulnerability of their bodies, I noticed this on TV too. I know it sounds silly, but it was on The Simpsons. Bart does all this crazy intense stuff but suddenly there are scenes where the "camera" backs up for a larger view and you are suddenly reminded how young and frail and small he is, his underlying vulnerability. That had struck me several times when I used to watch it and stayed with me.

    By the way, I'm really looking forward to the "Advent--the Dailiness of it" blog : )

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  4. So true.

    I just took a picture of my grandson's hand today. It is an exact albeit hairless copy of his daddy's hand. Only tiny.

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  5. Wonderfully put, very apt. And if it is not the physicalness of parenting which is pulling at me, it is the mental fatique: then God reflects back to me, in a look or a sign, how fragile they are, as fragile as I had been, and how He made them just that way so that I might see a fragment of what is before His eyes, so that I might try to understand.

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  6. Good morning. lovely post...I was just thinking about my children and how precious they are and how I should make sure they know how much I love them. thanks for this.

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  7. My children now loom over me and I still feel this sense of their fragility.

    I like the connection you made between our parenting and being parented by God.

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  8. thanks for visiting my blog this morning.. take care:)

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  9. Oh yes. Thank you.

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  10. Anonymous7:28 AM

    Simply beautiful :)

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  11. Thanks for visiting my blog... you know I can relate to this so much this afternoon. I'm tired after chasing my 3 little ones around; I'm pregnant; my feet hurt, but in some way there is a satisfaction of accomplishment... I wonder if that is how God feels on some days when he's clean up after me?

    beautiful photography! I'll be back again! :)

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  12. Hi Me,

    I just wanted to let you know that I have been looking for tea tree oil and have not been able to find it yet. I will keep looking though because I'm interested in seeing what it might add to my laundry.

    Blessings,
    ~Mrs.B

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