She Shines Her King

I saw a little saying on Pinterest over a year ago that arrested me:

"Don't be so busy trying to raise a good kid that you forget you already have one."

Um, YES. I'm sure every parent worries and struggles equally, but as a perfectionist myself, I have noticed that parenting is maybe not the easiest journey for those of us who are type A personalities with maybe just a tad bit of a control issue. I am very much a "I would rather do it myself so that it will either be right or I can only blame myself if it's wrong" kind of gal. I expect a lot out of myself and I expect a lot out of those around me. I am very hung up on the way things look to other people and I am not fond of mistakes. (I am also not proud of any of this. However, it's who I am and I have learned to compensate for these things somewhat so that people actually like me.)

See, sometimes my kids say things that make me cringe. I'm pretty sensitive to fair treatment of people and social justice and the power of words... I spend half of my school year teaching the lessons of the Holocaust to an entire elective class. It's a job hazard, I guess. The other day, one of my girls started a statement with, "Not to be racist, but..." I had to stop her and explain that pretty much ten times out of ten, if you start a statement with those words-- it IS going to be racist and you need to rethink. I heard one of mine say to the other yesterday, "That's a stereotype for you to say that." We fall down, we get up. I try to model and teach and correct and explain and pray that they will be empathetic people. The problem is that empathy can't be taught.

But then sometimes, there are those moments .... those beautiful moments when you see it... you see the person they are going to be... you get to taste the fruit of the little lessons and the hard talks and the bitter tears and the prayers... because you see what had been a glimmer of that empathy become a shining cascade.

I had that moment with Emma recently. We were discussing her tenth birthday and I really wanted to make it big and meaningful for her. We are party people, but we wanted this one to be even better. We got around to presents and I mentioned that sometimes you just get lots of stuff at parties that you don't really need... more stuff to have to put somewhere (we are doing Jen Hatmaker's Seven experiment, so this was a timely conversation). I knew what I wanted to suggest but wanted to be very careful that she didn't feel like it was something I pushed her into doing. I mentioned that she might want to have people do something in lieu of gifts for her, maybe something connected to RFKC since her party theme was Camp X. She immediately agreed and suggested presents for the kids, so we settled on beach towels since we buy them for the campers every year. Now, lest you think the halo dazzled us all from her head at every turn, she did have a few moments in the interim when she reconsidered this, but by then it was too late because the invitations had gone out. Even still, she was excited about doing it for the kids. On party day, I wondered what the whole "nothing to open" part would look like and how she would take it. I needn't have worried. Presents would have just distracted from the good time! :) I asked her the other day, as we bagged up the towels to send to camp, if she missed having presents or felt like she lost out at all. She answered confidently with, "Not a bit."

See, she gets it. She cares. It got through to her. This kid of mine-- she's awesome. She loves people and she loves her God and she has picked up in her ten years on this earth that we aren't here for ourselves-- we're here to serve. I am so proud of her and her decision to forego her gifts this year to provide beach towels to kids, many of whom will bring their few belongings in trash bags to camp.

"Children of God shine like stars." ~Philippians 2:15